


Time After Time

by Kyele



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Kingsman Reverse Big Bang 2019, M/M, Magic, Major Character Death (in previous lives), True Love, both Hartwin and Percilot are primary relationships and receive equal screen time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-05-15 02:23:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: That Morgana had seduced Guinevere with promises is no mystery. Promises of how much better life would be if Arthur’s lover were dead – promises of how good vengeance would feel, to get back at the knight who had turned down Guinevere’s advances towards having a lover of her own. Percival has wondered – they have all wondered, over the centuries – how far Guinevere had really thought it through. Or whether she had even been in her own right mind, or affected by magic herself, to think the double murder would gain her anything. Did she think Arthur would turn back to her if Galahad were dead? Did she think that killing Lancelot for the crime of not cuckolding the King would be something any of the Knights could forgive?At the end of Arthur's reign in Camelot, Morgana's curse fells Galahad and Lancelot and traps them, along with their respective lovers, in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. In the time of Kingsman, a new opportunity to finally challenge her arises - and with it to break the curse once and for all. But if they fail, Camelot will fade from legend into myth, and there will be no second coming for Arthur and his court...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Donnerstagsengel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donnerstagsengel/gifts).



> Welcome to the second of my Kingsman Reverse Big Bang fics! This is a Hartwin/Percilot, and neither pairing is background or secondary; both will occupy approximately half of the fic, in alternating POVs. 
> 
> Thanks to [Elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan) and [Anarchycox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox) for running this challenge, to Kilauea for the incredible art (you'll see it later in the fic!), and to Elr one final time for cheerleading me through writing this beast :)
> 
> Finally, posting schedule: I missed getting this up yesterday, but I'll be sticking to my usual Tuesdays and Fridays after this; however, in order to get everything up before the July 15th deadline, I'll be posting two (2) chapters on each posting day. Enjoy!

Harry is somewhere over the Indian Ocean in a Kingsman jet when he feels Lancelot's life end in a moment of shocking violence. It's like a fist to the gut, or a stab wound – abrupt and painful, leaving a terrible ache behind.

It is, quite sadly, not the first time he's felt Lancelot die. And it probably won't be the last.

Harry taps the side of his glasses, transferring all transmissions over to a channel linked to his personal server, and contacts Merlin.

“Lancelot's dead,” he says.

Merlin’s voice is scratchy with the distance and the encryption. “I know. I felt it, too. I've tracked Lancelot to Argentina, to a villa about two hours west of Buenos Aires.”

“Where's Percival?” Harry's worried for his friend.

“On a rooftop in Paris, about to assassinate Zoltan Korevitch. Not a time to interrupt him.”

“Do you think he'll be able to finish the job?” Percival will have felt Lancelot's death, too. All of those who are trapped in this awful cycle of reincarnation and death know it when one of their own succumbs yet again to their curse.

Merlin laughs, a foul and bitter sound. “How long have you known Percival?”

The question is rhetorical, and so is Harry's answer. “In this lifetime?”

“Then ye know that there's nothing, not even Lancelot's demise, that'll keep Percival from completing his mission. He'll come home, demand we retrieve the body, and hold it together until the funeral is over. Then he'll break down and crawl inside a bottle for a few weeks. Ye'll drag him out and force him to live the rest of his natural life. The job will give him a reason to live, too.”

Harry's not so sure that this pattern will hold. Percival had sworn that he'd be the first to go, this time. That it would be only right, since Lancelot had died first the last time. At that thought, Harry feels his heart grow heavier. He'd lost his own beloved in the same war, at almost the same time.

At least Percival and Lancelot had almost two decades together this time, long enough that Harry had dared to hope that maybe they'd somehow avoided the doom that's haunted them through the millennia. They'd reveled in their happiness, finally alive and together in an age when two men could live together, love together without censure.

The only cloud on their happiness had been Harry's own sadness. Not that Harry had begrudged his old friends their joy. It's just that Harry's own mate, his beloved Galahad, has never appeared.

It's been a long time since Harry had had to go so many years without meeting his lover. In the past few centuries, his Galahad had always arrived within a few months before or after Harry reaches his thirtieth birthday. Unlike Percival and Lancelot, whose meetings have been erratic, Harry has always had the relative certainty of knowing when he’d meet his beloved again.

But not this lifetime. Harry has been waiting in desperate futility for his lover to show up, but he's approaching fifty and there's no sign that his own Galahad has even been born.

Merlin says, “Arthur is going to want to see ye as soon as ye get back, to toast Lancelot. He'll be in London.”

It takes all of Harry's willpower not to snap at Merlin, to tell him that Chester doesn't deserve to be called _Arthur_. He grits his teeth and mutters, “Of course he does.”

“Ye need to keep on the bastard's good side. He can make yer life a misery with little effort.”

Harry sighs. “I know, old friend. But he is _not_ Arthur.”

“According to Kingsman's by-laws, he's the duly appointed head of the agency. That's what makes him Arthur. Ye wrote those rules yerself, ye know.”

Harry does know that. He remembers sitting at a desk, looking out over the rolling hills of his Herefordshire estate and penning the very words that Merlin's referring to. Harry also knows that he can't always hold the title that reflects his true soul. Hell, thirty years ago, he'd taken on the mantle of Galahad, thinking it something of a joke, one he would gleefully share with his own true Galahad when they finally meet. But now Harry's certain that he'll never have that chance. One day, perhaps sooner than later, he'll die as Galahad, even though he is not _Galahad_.

It’s unfair – though Harry laughs to think that fairness might have anything to do with this hell. But even though they’ve been trapped in this cycle of death and reincarnation for millennia, even though the years of happiness he shared with Galahad are often all too few before war or sickness take one of them away, still they have always _had_ those few years. It’s that time Harry lives for, not for the full span of lonely years that come after Galahad has left him behind. To find himself already in that twilight without ever having known his lover’s touch in this body…

He's quiet for so long that Merlin says, his voice filled with worry, “Harry?”

“I'm still here. Just lost in thought.”

Merlin, whether by luck or his own innate power, knows what Harry is obsessing over. “I've not stopped looking for him. Just so you know.”

“There's no point to your search, Merlin. It's twenty years too late.” Saying it aloud, though, makes Harry feel ashamed. He should never give up. Not on Galahad. Not on the true lodestar of his wandering life.

Merlin agrees. “It's never too late. I might have spent fourteen hundred years trapped under the Tree, but I always felt yer joy upon that first meeting.”

“And the grief when I lost him.”

“And the grief when he lost _you_ , too. When ye lost each other. But if ye want me to stop searching, I will.”

Merlin's words ring with sincerity and Harry actually considers giving the command. But he can't. He can't let hope die. “No, keep looking. It might be a pointless exercise, but keep looking anyway.”

“I will, my king.”

Harry smiles at the title and doesn't bother to correct his old friend, the wizard who'd mentored him, who had taught him what it meant to rule and be a true king. After all, Merlin only uses the title when he's assured that there's no one listening.

Instead Harry sticks to business. “I'm at least five hours out from London. Since Chester wants to see me at the shop, please reroute the landing to City Airport. There's no need for me to go all the way to Herefordshire and back out to London.”

“That's not exactly convenient for the next agent who needs the jet,” Merlin objects.

“As if I give a shit?” There are prerogatives to kingship, after all.

Merlin laughs and Harry disconnects the call. He wants to reach out to Percival, but he doesn't. Percival is on a job, and when it's completed, he'll reach out to Harry. Not to find solace, Percival is too stoic - and always has been - for that. But to offer Harry some comfort. Lancelot had always been Harry's good friend, and the loss is one that can't be shrugged off.

The flight feels interminable and Harry gets up to pace the length of the passenger cabin. That exercise occupies him for five minutes. He stares out of the window but sees nothing but darkness - the angle is wrong for the stars and it's a moonless night. The darkness seems fitting, matching the condition of Harry's soul and the tenor of his thoughts.

Merlin would counsel him to sleep, to get some rest while rest is still possible, but Harry can't sleep. The aching loss is still too painful.

* * *

_“Ah, Captain Hartsfield, you're right on time.”_

_Harry salutes the man who had sent for him, feeling pride and annoyance in equal measure. Just an hour back in London after a week of home leave, a soldier had delivered a message from Brigadier General Stuart-Lethbridge at British Army Headquarters, commanding his presence. In more peaceful times, Stuart-Lethbridge had been one of Harry’s favorite professors at Oxford. It seems that the respect had been reciprocated, since the once and future military officer had done his very best to advance Harry's career in the Army. Which is why Harry can't ignore or delay responding to the summons._

_He arrives at Army Headquarters and the general is fairly twisting with excitement. “Your promotion's been approved, Hartsfield. That's now_ Major _Hartsfield.” Stuart-Lethbridge grins, an expression that would frighten lesser men than Henry Reginald Hartsfield. “And I have a surprise for you.”_

_Harry's now seriously worried. He doesn't like surprises, especially those that come out of British Army Headquarters. He somehow doubts there's a birthday cake waiting for him, even though he'd turned thirty yesterday._

_A soldier standing guard salutes and opens the conference room door. What Harry finds waiting inside is far better than any birthday cake. It's a man, gazing out the window, watching the autumn leaves drift by._

Galahad.

_Harry can tell without even seeing the man's face that his lover, his beloved, has been returned to him. After all, his thirtieth birthday was less than twenty-four hours ago._

_And Harry can't think of a better birthday present._

_He holds his breath as the man turns around and he's greeted with the face of an angel. That doesn't surprise Harry. Galahad has always been one of the most beautiful men in the world._

_Stuart-Lethbridge seems oblivious. “Let me introduce you to your adjutant, Lieutenant Gareth Elwick.”_

_Galahad gives him a private smile as he salutes. “Major Hartsfield, sir.”_

_Harry returns the gesture, but not the smile, since the Brigadier is looking at him. “Lieutenant.”_

_“Your orders should be coming through in the next week or so, gentlemen. I suggest you use the interval to get to know each other.” Stuart-Lethbridge shifts his gaze to Galahad. “Lieutenant, you are still looking for rooms?”_

_“Aye, sir.”_

_The question doesn't surprise Harry. Back in his teaching days, Stuart-Lethbridge had been notorious for the amount of care he'd shown to his students. Even now, as a member of the General Staff, the Brigadier has a reputation for doing his best to save lives, not waste them._

_Now he says, “I believe the Major has a house in London.”_

_“I do, sir - family property.” Harry knows where this is leading and he couldn't be happier. “If the lieutenant needs a bed and board, I'll be happy to provide it. We'll be working closely together, so this will be a good chance to get to know each other.”_

_Harry thinks he hears Galahad laughing at him. Or that just might be centuries of lives taking their amusement at the situation._

_The Brigadier nods approval. “Major, I also believe you have another few days of home leave - will housing Lieutenant Elwick be an issue?”_

_“No, sir. I had planned on spending the time in London, amusing myself, before reporting for duty. But given my promotion and the appointment of Lieutenant Elwick as my adjutant, I have no issue in sacrificing the two days for the greater good of the British Expeditionary Force.”_

_Stuart-Lethbridge shakes his head. “No, Major. You take the time, and in fact, I'm giving Elwick here two days as well. I want you two to work together like a hand in a glove. It's not getting better in France and we're going to need you operating at full speed as soon as your orders come through.”_

_Harry casts a look at his lieutenant. “Are you all right with this?”_

_“Of course, sir.” Galahad's smile is pure cheek. “Looking forward to getting to know you.”_

_The Brigadier doesn't see what Harry sees, and commends them. “Good, good. Glad to hear that you're both on board with this plan. Now, get yourselves out of here. Don't want to see your faces until Monday morning.”_

_Harry and Elwick salute as the Brigadier leaves the room._

_Harry licks his lips and whispers, “Galahad?”_

_If he'd thought Galahad's smile was cheeky and bright before, it's nothing like the one he gives him now. “Arthur. Wasn't expecting to see you today.”_

_“Neither was I, but I had hopes for finding you this weekend.”_

_“So, it's happy birthday and all that?”_

_“Yesterday.”_

_Galahad nods. “This might be the earliest we've been reunited since – well – since our Plantagenet days.”_

_Harry thinks back involuntarily. The memories are not pleasant ones. “Hopefully our time together won't end as terribly as it did back then.”_

_“Hopefully not, but hope is a fragile thing – like fairy floss and butterfly wings.”_

_“You're a poet this time?” Harry should probably have said, a poet_ again _. Galahad has always had a lyrical bent._

_Galahad shrugs. “I'm Welsh this time. Poetry is in my blood, apparently.”_

_Harry’s blood is interested in something more than poetry. “Let's get out of here. Do you have your belongings stashed somewhere? We can go retrieve them.”_

_Galahad reaches down and hefts a large bag. “Not necessary, I have everything right here.”_

_Harry hides his excitement and happiness in formality. “Then shall we, Lieutenant?”_

_He's rewarded with another one of those cheeky smiles. “We shall, Major.”_

_The trip back to Kensington takes two changes on the Underground and a four block walk along Gloucester Road. Harry can't help but offer to carry Galahad's duffle bag, but Galahad waves off the request and picks up the pace. Harry's left to drool over his once and future lover's ass and thighs as Galahad strides along in the late afternoon sunshine._

_Harry catches up and asks, his own tone slightly sarcastic, “Do you know where you're going?”_

_Galahad stops and laughs; Harry thinks he's never heard anything sweeter. “No, not in the least. Is it far?”_

_“No, it's on the mews block, just off to the left. My house is the one at the end.”_

_Galahad whistles when they turn the corner. “Family property? Who, exactly, is your family this time?”_

_Harry just shrugs. “Does it really matter?”_

_“Nah, of course it doesn't. You're Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther and Ygraine. That's all that counts.”_

_Harry shivers when he hears those names. “It's been a long time since anyone's said that. I – ” He fishes his keys out of his pocket and opens the door. “I forget, sometimes. Not about who I am, but about what that means.” That he's the product of lust and deception, that he has no true memory of his dam and sire, the very real, very flawed people who had created the man behind the legend._

_Galahad precedes Harry inside, dropping his bag in the foyer. When Harry turns back from locking up, Galahad looks up at him with luminous eyes. Eyes as green as the woods surrounding Camelot, as green as his eternal memory._

_Harry reaches out and rests a hand on Galahad's shoulder. He doesn't know what he means to do, but he has to touch his lover, to feel the warmth of his body, the sheer aliveness of it. And Galahad doesn't hesitate to step close, to push Harry back against the door, to press a kiss under Harry's jaw._

_At that contact, Harry shivers and pants._

_“I've waited a decade to do that, Arthur.”_

_A decade, which means his Galahad's twenty-four. A good age, just six years difference between them. Harry can remember lifetimes when he'd been ten, fifteen, twenty years older than Galahad, but oddly, he can't recall an instance when Galahad had been the one who was older. It could be that because Galahad had been twenty-five years younger than his king when they'd first met, except that Percival and Lancelot's lives don't hold to that pattern. They seem to switch ages with each new life._

_Then all thoughts of age difference and reincarnated lives are erased when Galahad drops to his knees and presses kisses of a different sort against Harry's woolen uniform trousers. Harry's breath catches as he looks down into Galahad's eyes and nearly drowns in the greenness._

_“Do you want this, Arthur?” Galahad is grinning as he rubs his cheek against Harry's erection._

_“Do I want to keep breathing?” Harry retorts and bangs the back of his head against the door as Galahad slowly - far too slowly - undoes the buttons on his trouser fly. He forgets how to breathe as his lover carefully pulls his prick out and rubs it all over his face. Harry lets out a low stream of curses as he feels the late-day scruff on Galahad's chin and cheeks prickle against his cock._

_“Suck me.” Harry tries for a tone of command, but lifetimes of wanting have a way of making that order sound like a supplication._

_Galahad, ever the most honorable of Arthur's knights - if not the most obedient – complies, and in a feat of sexual excellence, swallows Harry down to his pubes. Galahad deep throats him and Harry comes with a shout, spilling into his lover's mouth like a boy with his first prostitute._

_Harry would have apologized for this lack of gentlemanly behavior, but Galahad, still on his knees, is looking at him like mischief incarnate. He makes a deliberate act of swallowing and licking his lips clean before tucking Harry's spent cock back in his trousers._

_“Welcome home, my liege.”_

_Harry laughs, the sound thin and breathless to his own ears. Yes, he is most definitely home._

* * *

Harry and Percival, along with the rest of the Kingsman agents, raise their glasses to make the toast. Arthur, their nominal leader, says, “To Lancelot, an outstanding agent. He will be sorely missed.”

The two men, plus the nine agents attending as holograms, echo the words.

Harry takes a sip of the brandy and wants to puke. He feels Percival shudder, and it takes all his self-discipline not to comfort his friend. The holograms wink out one by one, leaving just the three of them in the boardroom.

The silence is oppressive until someone knocks on the door. It's Merlin, carrying a magic wand masquerading as a tablet, which is itself disguised as an ordinary clipboard.

“Knights. Arthur.” Merlin nods at Harry and Percival and gives the man at the head of the table the barest courtesy. “We've been able to track Lancelot's last known coordinates to a villa in the middle range of the Cordillera de Lípez, on the border of Bolivia and Argentina. Lancelot had been investigating a group of mercenaries who had been experimenting with biological weaponry.”

Merlin asks them to don their glasses as he transfers the information to the monitor hiding behind a hunt scene. It's frankly unpleasant - evidence of mass murders in Uganda and Chechnya triggered by synthetic cathinones put in the drinking water. “Somehow,” Merlin winds up, “Lancelot had linked these events to a professor at the Imperial College who'd been kidnapped and taken to Lancelot's last known location.”

Harry frowns. “What does this man have to do with the mass murders?”

“Professor Arnold is a proponent of the Gaia Theory. It holds that the earth will somehow rid itself of the parts of humanity that are sickening the environment. Lancelot's last transmission mentions Professor Arnold talking about this Gaia Theory, right before Lancelot decided to effect a solo rescue mission.”

“The one that got him killed,” Percival says grimly.

Merlin nods. “Exactly. And the mystery deepens. It seems that Professor Arnold isn't as kidnapped as Lancelot had thought. Routine surveillance picked the professor heading to his office at the Imperial College this morning.”

“I think we need to speak to the professor,” Arthur says in a firm voice and then turns to look at Harry. “You'll take the lead on this, Galahad.”

Harry's not surprised when Percival interrupts, staking his claim to the mission. “No, Arthur, I will.”

That earns them both a frown of deep displeasure. “I believe I am the head of this agency and it's my prerogative to assign missions to the agent most suitable. Galahad is, in all respects, the most suitable agent in this room.”

Harry puts a warning hand on Percival's knee, but Percival brushes it off and keeps talking. “With all due respect, Arthur, you're full of shit.”

“Excuse me, agent?”

“You heard me, you're full of shit. You let your prejudices blind you to what is best for Kingsman.”

Part of Harry wants to drag Percival out of the room and tell him that this isn't the time to be a hero, but most of Harry is applauding Percival for finally taking a stand. His friend has been Arthur's punching bag and whipping boy for decades.

Arthur snaps, “Alistair Morton, you are out of line and may soon find yourself on the unemployment line unless you apologize.”

“For what? For finally speaking up?”

Arthur shakes his head. “Your kind, always so emotional, always so quick to see slights and slanders.”

“My kind?”

Arthur gives Harry a look, begging for help, but Harry just shakes his head. He would sooner punch Arthur in his prim, self-righteous face than help him out of the jam he's gotten himself into.

And of course, Arthur doubles down on his assholery. “Yes, your kind. And you know just what I mean. You're a grown man, on the far side of forty, don't you think it's time to stop playing at being a schoolboy with his 'favorite' friend?”

Percival has a quick retort, “And be more like you, a serial adulterer who's paying alimony to two wives and is cheating on a third? You hold yourself out to be a paragon of British manhood, but all you are is a petty tyrant who doesn't know how to keep his fly zipped.”

As entertaining as this is, Harry knows that Arthur hates being called out on his weaknesses and is not above having Percival eliminated. “Frankly, Arthur, I think Percival should be the one investigating Professor Arnold. What you see as a weakness is true strength; Percival has every incentive to find out why the professor is back in London and what he knows about our agent's death.”

Arthur, however, isn't mollified. “You overstep yourself, Galahad. I’ve tolerated Percival’s deviance for far too long.”

“And yet you accepted it in Lancelot. Why?” Harry raises a mocking eyebrow at the man who has steadily demeaned one of his oldest and dearest friends. “Perhaps because Lancelot is the son of an earl and you've always been one to sniff after a title the way a hound sniffs another dog's butt. And Percival is so dreadfully middle class, good yeoman stock but not really up to snuff.” Harry would love to point out that Arthur's parents had been just two generations from the South London slums, but he has other ways of antagonizing the man.

Not surprisingly, Arthur doesn't fire back with censure and insults. Instead, he shrinks back into his seat, visibly intimidated. After all, Harry is even better born than Lancelot, able to trace his lineage to the Crown on two vectors. His mother is the great granddaughter of Queen Victoria and his father had been a scion of the House of Stuart, via a liaison between Charles II and one of his wife's ladies in waiting. Not that Harry has ever cared about such things. As Arthur Pendragon, the once and future king of Britain, ancestral ties to the Crown are almost irrelevant.

“No, it will be best if Percival speaks with Professor Arnold.” Harry makes it sound as if this is a done deal.

Alas, Arthur seems to have found his spine and contradicts him. “No, I think not. You, Galahad, have been assigned to this mission and you will complete it. Percival is needed elsewhere.”

Before Harry can argue about the orders, a piercing alarm interrupts him. He looks at Percival, who's wincing against the noise and reaching for his gun. Arthur has his ears covered and looks like he's about to dive under the table. But the sound isn't coming from the building's security system.

“My apologies, gentleman.” Merlin pulls out his cell phone, which is probably some magical instrument encased in modern technology. He silences the alarm and holds out the phone as if it's a scanner. Merlin first waves it in front of Percival, who looks utterly confused. Merlin shakes his head and then repeats the gesture on Arthur, which gets the same result.

When Merlin holds out the phone and waves it at Harry, it makes that horrible noise again. Merlin sighs and makes a face. Harry remembers his wizard doing something like this back in the days before Camelot, but now he has no idea what kind of game Merlin's playing.

“Arthur, I'm afraid that the only place that Galahad is going is the decontamination chamber in the medical ward. I'm picking up traces of a single-scattering albedo radiation and minute particles of Angstrom exponent in the Twomey effect off of Galahad. He needs to get cleaned up and treated, otherwise the exposure could become fatal.”

Galahad thinks back through his last mission and wonders how he'd been exposed to - what did Merlin call it - albedo radiation. He'd spend three weeks trailing the Undersecretary for Commonwealth Affairs through Australia, who had alleged ties to a white nationalist group. Almost a month of boring cocktail parties and gladhanding in pristine hotels had left Harry bored to tears. The man hadn't even done a photo op at a factory.

But if Merlin says he needs decon and treatment, Harry's not going to waste time drinking shit brandy in the shop boardroom. “Well then, it seems that Percival _will_ be taking this assignment, Arthur, since I'll be otherwise engaged.” Without further ceremony, Harry gets up to leave.

Arthur makes a face and shoos them out of the boardroom, but just as he, Percival and Merlin are about to walk out the door, Arthur reminds them, “The candidate training for the Lancelot position begins the day after tomorrow, so your candidates will need to report tomorrow night.”

Percival visibly slumps and Harry wonders if his old friend will abstain from making a proposal. Harry hasn't taken much interest in the whole process since Lee Unwin had sacrificed himself in Iraq. For this round, he'll probably pick a name at random off of a list young worthies with decent families and connections that Merlin maintains, some young Hooray Henry who'll wash out by the third week.

They are in Fitting Room One and Merlin activates the slowest lift in the world. Percival is hovering close to Harry, but Harry steps back, into a corner. “I don't think you should be so close to me, Perce. What with the radiation.”

Merlin makes a sound that is suspiciously close to laughter.

Harry looks at him. “What's going on?”

Merlin makes a production of pulling up something on his clipboard. “Wikipedia actually makes all the horrors of this modern age worth it.” He turns the clipboard around and shows Harry a page on Atmospheric Radiation. “Arthur - this one, at least - is a fecking moron. I made all that up on the go. It sounded good, but is utter shite. You've been exposed to sunlight, Harry. That's it. I just needed to get ye out of there before one of ye committed murder.”

Harry has to laugh. “Very good, Merlin. Sleeping for fourteen hundred years has done nothing to dull your wits.”

The lift creaks to a halt and the three of them board the waiting train. Harry turns to Percival and asks in a gentle tone, “Will you be proposing anyone for Lancelot’s position?”

Percival give Harry a wry, sad smile. “I've actually given this some serious thought. How pissed off will Arthur be if I offer my niece as my candidate?”

Harry blinks. He's met young Roxanne Morton many times over the years and found her to be much in the mold of her family - strong and fearless. “I think Arthur might just have a fatal heart attack at the thought of a woman sitting at the table.”

“James would be rather pleased to see our name and his blood in that seat.” Percival says as stares out of the window, into the darkness. “He never tried to be a father to Elaine's daughter, but he had been as proud of her as any parent could be.”

The rest of the journey out to Headquarters is conducted in silence, at least until Merlin taps at the side of his glasses, acknowledging an incoming transmission.

Harry’s ears perk up when he hears Merlin say, “Unwin? Are ye sure? He's called in the favor?” The conversation must include some data, because Merlin gets busy with his tablet. “Holborn? Can ye connect me with the head copper there?” A pause, then a sound of disgust. “Aye, it would have to be like that. All right, someone from my division will be out there soon. Be sure they know there’ll be hell to pay if Unwin does anything more than cool his heels in an interrogation room.” Merlin must receive an acknowledgement; he clicks the connection closed without further ado.

“Lee’s son?” Harry asks. Out of respect for Percival, who is staring out the featureless window in a private reverie, he keeps his voice low.

“Aye,” Merlin says. “He’s finally called in the favor.”

“I thought he never would.” It must have been the better part of two decades since Lee Unwin had died. Usually the favor gets called in in the first few years or not at all. Though, now that Harry does the math… “How old is the boy now?”

“I’ll get a file together for ye, if ye’re seriously interested,” Merlin says in amusement.

“If he’s half the man his father was, he’d make a good Kingsman,” Harry says quietly. There’s an open seat, after all. He’s in mourning, but he’s also a king, and he must think of the good of his country as well as his private grief.

“Aye.” Merlin nods understandingly. “I’ll get some information for ye.”

“ _Including_ whatever this stunt with the Holborn police is.” Not to say a criminal record necessarily disqualifies one from Kingsman. Something like breaking and entering would be right up the agency’s alley.

Merlin doesn’t dignify this with a response. He merely gives Harry a look that is older than Britain itself. Harry, irrepressible, grins back.

The train glides to a halt. Harry makes a motion to grab Percival’s arm, but the other knight is faster than Harry, this time at least. Percival is through the doors and disappearing into the warren of Kingsman before Harry can stop him.

“Give him time to mourn,” Merlin advises.

“Old friend, you know I value your wisdom,” Harry says after a long moment, in which he has to throttle the uncharacteristic urge to yell at his wizard. “But don’t you see – we’ve mourned too much.”

“And what else of use could he be doing now, eh?” Merlin shakes his head and steers Harry away, down a corridor that doesn’t lead to the mortuary. Because that’s where Percival is going, of course. “Come on. Let me bring ye up to speed on what Lancelot was working on before his death. If ye’re to take on the case, ye’ll need to know what’s going on.”

“I suppose so,” Harry sighs. He looks down the far corridor again, straining for a glimpse of his friend. But as is so often the case for them, there’s nothing left to see.


	2. Chapter 2

The mortuary smells of death. It always does, even when it’s empty. The wide stainless steel table has held an unknown number of bodies. Mission targets, brought in to be forced to give up one more secret. Innocent victims caught in the crossfire who couldn’t be left behind to betray Kingsman technology in the hands of a curious mortician. Candidates for knighthood who wash out in the most final way possible. Members of the support divisions who have nowhere else to go in death, having dedicated their lives to Kingsman.

Knights, too. Though less often than the uninitiated might think, if they’d ever had cause to think on the topic. Most knights are left where they lie, if they are fortunate enough to even leave enough behind to be called a body. As always, Lancelot is an exception.

One of the exceptions.

The floor squeaks beneath Percival’s stiff, shined oxfords. It’s linoleum. Easy to hose down. Nothing at all like the stone floors Percival had walked across the first time he had approached a bier to view his beloved’s body. But he had been wearing armor then, and his mailed feet had clanked against the stone, just as his shoes squeak against the shined and polished linoleum now.

Lancelot is lying on the table. There’s a sheet pulled up to his neck, but that doesn’t disguise the cut that had taken his life, running up crookedly across the arch of his lips, slicing across the bridge of his nose, and making a mess of his hair, usually so neatly parted. Percival wants to run his fingers through that hair. Wants Lancelot to toss his head sleepily, as he always does when Percival wakes him up that way – blink open his eyes and let his lips curve in an indulgent smile, tip his chin up in anticipation of the kiss that always follows…

Percival grips the side of the table. It’s cold. The whole room is cold. Cold, and still, and smells of death. If he kisses his beloved on the lips, the whole careful arrangement of Lancelot’s body will fall apart, and Percival will have to confront the view of what Morgana had done to him.

Maybe he’s a coward. But Percival had looked, that first time. Arthur had tried to hold him back physically, and Merlin had argued with all the persuasion of wit and guile and magic, but Percival had looked. Ever since then – and they have lived many lives since then – he has refused to look. But the memory of that first death remains behind his eyes every time he blinks.

The mortuary is silent. Lancelot would hate the silence. He’s never silent, if he can be speaking. Other Knights would joke that they liked Lancelot best on a stakeout, when he had to be quiet. But Lancelot is movement and laughter and sound and _life,_ and it doesn’t _matter_ that this is the twenty-fourth time that Lancelot has died untimely. It’s still wrong, and the silence presses in on Percival until he wants to scream.

Instead he says, accusingly, “It was supposed to be me.”

Lancelot doesn’t reply. But Percival has known his beloved across dozens of lifetimes, across millennia, and he can imagine Lancelot laughing at him, even from beyond the grave. _It was a beautiful thought_ , he might say gently – for Lancelot could be gentle, to Percival at least. _But you know there was no way to guarantee it._

_Shut up,_ Percival almost says, reflexively responding. But Lancelot will never speak again – “I don’t _care_ ,” he says, petulant and not giving a fuck. “You always do this, Lance. You always go and die _before me – “_

_Not always._ No, not always, but more often, far more often, than Percival dies first. Lancelot had been the first of them to die, the first time around. And throughout the decades, the curse that has snarled their lives and forced them into this endless cycle of rebirth and death has shown a marked tendency to repeat itself. Lancelot dies first. Dies young. Percival has never seen his beloved with grey hair. Never seen him use a cane, never smoothed wrinkles from his face. The Lancelot on the steel table in the mortuary at the Kingsman manor is very nearly the oldest he has ever been – forty-one years old, last March.

He’d been younger, barely twenty-five, the first time. Though the rest of them had not long outlived him. Guinevere’s spell had taken Galahad in almost the same breath. Then Morgana had finished the job with Arthur’s death at Camlann. Percival had fallen defending him there. Not that it had made a difference.

“It was supposed to be me this time,” Percival whispers. “I was supposed to die first.”

_I don’t know how many more times I can bury you._

For some reason – a trick of the harsh fluorescent lights, Percival thinks – Lancelot looks as if he might be smiling. _As many times as it takes,_ he doesn’t say.

“Percival?”

Percival half-turns, hunching a shoulder in instinctive defense, though his eyes confirm what his instincts have already told him. “Merlin,” he greets, bowing his head in respect. “I didn’t feel you coming.” There’s usually a sixth sense they have of each others’ presence - a tiny tickle at the back of the neck, a shiver at the base of the spine. Merlin has been experimenting with shielding himself from that, of late.

“You’re too dependent on that,” Merlin says, though his usual chiding tone is absent. With Lancelot dead before them, now is not the time. And the repetition is hardly necessary. Merlin has expressed himself on this topic many times before, and will doubtless do so many times again. Since awakening in this lifetime and learning what has happened since Morgana’s treachery and Guinevere’s seduction, Merlin has had – and voiced – a great many opinions.

In lieu of answering, Percival reaches out and takes Lancelot’s hand. It, at least, is untouched by the violence that had taken Lancelot’s life. Percival may not be able to kiss his beloved’s lips, but he can lift the chilly limb and kiss the back of his hand.

“Percival,” Merlin says, and now he sounds gentle, which is rare enough that it makes Percival look at him, even though it means looking away from Lancelot’s body. “He will come back.”

That startles a laugh out of Percival. “Do you think I don’t know that?” he cries, and suddenly the laugh sounds more like a sob. “We have done this dozens of times, Merlin, while you slept beneath the Tree. We live. We die. We are born again. We find each other – we love each other – and then he dies. He dies young, every time – ” _Nearly_ , Lancelot would correct him, and Percival nearly chokes on how much he wants Lancelot to correct him. To tease him for his melodrama and point out all his exaggerations. “He dies young,” Percival finishes bitterly. “And I rarely get to do the same.”

Not every lifetime has included the mercy of a swift death at Camlann. Too often Percival lives out his allotted span, and finds it long indeed. Old age is only pain without a partner to share it with. Death is terribly lonely when it finds one alone – though in that, horribly enough, Lancelot shares his fate. They are almost never together when one of them dies. Their last lives had been an exception – a wartime death, yes, but one coming from trench-borne disease, and Percival had found Lancelot in the hospital tent in time to be with him at the end. A pitiful mercy. And after that, when they’d met again in this life, Percival had sworn that he would die first.

“Aye,” Merlin agrees. The bare simplicity of the word helps, bizarrely. It’s a fact. And if it’s ever to change, it will take more than promises Percival had always known he had no way of keeping. “But something else has changed.”

“Changed? What?” Now Merlin has his full attention – well, nearly. Part of Percival’s attention will always be on Lancelot. It had always been that way, ever since the very beginning.

Merlin dares to put a hand on Percival’s shoulder. “Come upstairs,” he suggests. “Arthur’s pouring the mead.” He doesn’t mean Chester King. They’d already gone through the official farce, toasting to the fallen knight, and Percival had come within a hair’s-breadth of finally giving that jumped-up knave what he so richly deserves. Harry and Merlin had smoothed it over, and Percival had stalked off down here, to cool down figuratively as well as literally. And to say goodbye.

“Come on,” Merlin urges again. “I’ll tell the both of ye at once.”

“All right,” Percival says resignedly. He doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay here, as if by holding on to Lancelot’s remains he can summon him back. But there’s a rhythm to their deaths, by now, as well as to their lives. Percival has to go on. And if Merlin really has found something new, something that might help them break the terrible cycle…

_Go on, love_ , Lancelot would urge. _You know I’m not really here anyway. I’m with you. I’m always with you._

“And I with you,” Percival murmurs. He kisses Lancelot’s hand once more, then settles it back down beneath the merciful white sheet. Turning away is hard. But he puts one foot in front of the other, and Merlin waits patiently until those steps add up to something with meaning.

* * *

_The sky is grey, but Percival isn’t looking at the sky._

_He’s flat on his back, courtesy of the man looming above him, the knight he’d only formally met the evening before. Lancelot, his name is. Percival would have to be tortured before he’d admit that he’d only managed to commit perhaps a quarter of the names he’d been given last night to memory, but certain individuals had managed to stick in his mind. Arthur, of course. Kneeling and swearing fealty to a man has a way of making one remember him, even if Percival had only known the King by reputation before he had come to Camelot with his father’s name as a password to seek employ. Merlin, the wizard – folklore in the forest of Percival’s childhood had been divided on whether Merlin were beneficent or not, but there had been no argument that Merlin is powerful. And terrifying. That much, the rumors had certainly got right. There had been the Queen, Guinevere, whose beauty had not been exaggerated. And then there had been Lancelot, of whose beauty Percival had never, incomprehensibly, heard..._

_Yesterday Percival had arrived in Camelot and taken the first steps towards making his dreams come true. Today is Percival’s first day on the practice grounds, though he prays it will be far from his last. King Arthur had been pleased to say he’d remembered Percival’s father, and generous enough to allow him a place as a page, with the promise that if Percival works hard, if he attends to the development of his own skills as well as his duties, the King will ensure a knight takes Percival as squire when he turns fourteen. Hence why Percival finds himself on the practice-grounds before dawn. Why Sir Lancelot, a full knight already at the tender age of eighteen, is here likewise, is a question Percival had not dared to ask. Indeed he had not dared to say anything. He had only nodded mute assent when commanded to stand forth and demonstrate his limited skill. Even when Lancelot had taken him out at the legs and sent him prone on the ground, Percival hadn’t even dared to yelp._

_The sky is grey, but Lancelot’s eyes are blue enough that Percival has no need of the sky._

_They crinkle now, as if their owner is amused. “Should you like a hand up, perchance?” Lancelot inquires. His voice is admirably grave, but his eyes dance. “Or would you use it to pull me down into the mud with you?”_

_“I’d never!” Shock must be written as plainly on Percival’s face as any country bumpkin, though he’d sworn to appear sophisticated. “’Twouldn’t be chivalrous!”_

_Something of the mirth fades from Lancelot’s mien, then. “Nor is a funeral,” he says. “I find myself with distinct preferences about which I experience, myself.”_

_“What – what do you mean?” Slowly Percival rises to his feet, collecting his sword as he does so, if not his wits. His mother would have it that his wits had been left behind in the forest, on the day he’d first spoken his desire to go to Camelot and seek a place in Arthur’s court. “Surely – a knight is chivalrous first and foremost, are they not?”_

_Lancelot shrugs. “If you are asking me whether a dead knight is still a knight, I can only say aye.”_

_“Dead? But surely – ” Percival stammers to a halt, suddenly unsure how to finish his thought. In the forest things had seemed so simple. In his mother’s memories of his father, in the stories of the few travelers and merchants who had come to their remote land, it had been obvious. A knight was chivalrous, gentle, and kind. And they always won. Who had ever heard of a story in which the knight_ died _?_

_Lancelot’s eyes crinkle again, but now the gravity in his tone is real. “Has someone told you that knights are immortal? I regret to be the one to disillusion you. Even should you one day receive knighthood, young not-yet-sir, you will not achieve invulnerability._ No honor can displace your mortality.”

_Percival swallows, embarrassment a tingling heat in his cheeks and fingertips. “It is not that I thought it did,” he says, with as much dignity as he can scrape up. “I merely thought my duty more important than my life.”_

_“Your duty, yes,” Lancelot agrees solemnly. “And what is your duty?”_

_Percival hesitates. It’s on the tip of his tongue to be saucy – to say,_ to polish the swords _, or,_ to shovel out the stables _, both of which, he has already been instructed, will be part of his daily duties as a page. But there is a gravity still in the way Lancelot looks at him that says he expects a more serious answer. That says – if Percival isn’t imagining it, in his longing to be welcomed, to be accepted – that Lancelot is speaking of knightly duties, and will not take levity kindly._

_“To serve and protect the crown, its wearer, my country, and its people,” Percival answers._

_Lancelot nods. “And I do not say that your death may never accomplish such an end,” he says. “But your life will always accomplish more. For however much your death may accomplish_ today _, yet_ tomorrow _always comes.”_

_“I – understand,” Percival says, though he wonders, even as he says it, if he’s lying. Lancelot’s words are plain enough – and make plain sense, even to a country lad – but how they square with the stories of honor and glory is more than Percival can say. Yet._

_Maybe by the time he’s a knight, he’ll understand._

_Lancelot smiles at him. The sky turns the palest of pearl colors, and then suddenly, between one blink and the next, erupts into a riot of color, as the sun crests the horizon in the east._

_“You’d best go,” Lancelot says. “The stable-master expects the first mucking to begin promptly at dawn, and you are now officially late.”_

_“Yes, my Lord,” Percival gasps, remembering to jerk a bow. “Thank you.”_

_“Percival?”_

_Percival hesitates, already halfway turned to run. “Yes?”_

_“Be here again tomorrow, at the first hour before dawn. Bring a practice sword.”_

_Does he mean – ? But the horns are blowing, and Percival has no more time to wonder. “Yes, my Lord!” he calls, and runs._

* * *

The Kingsman office is theoretically Galahad’s, which had been a joke when Arthur – or Harry Hart, as the world knows him – had first assumed the title. It’s not a joke anymore. Galahad had never come to share it. With each passing year Percival’s King has lost a little more hope that Galahad ever _would_ come again. But at least he has no proof: without proof, hope will always linger. Percival has just bid his lover’s body farewell again, and he has no sympathy left to spare.

“Here,” Arthur says, handing him a glass brimming full of some kind of liquor. Scotch, Percival discovers when he tastes it. Merlin pushes him into a chair. Percival goes willingly.

“Slow down on that,” Merlin says, offended by the way Percival is gulping his drink. “Don’t you know how old that is?”

“Not as old as I am,” Percival says with a gallows laugh. “Besides, Arthur probably bought it for a song three lifetimes ago.”

Merlin looks taken aback. He glances at Arthur, who nods.

“We haven’t been asleep, old friend,” Arthur says, gently enough. “It changes things.”

“Like compound interest,” Percival says. The alcohol is hitting his bloodstream fast – Arthur probably added something to it; is Percival grateful or outraged? He can’t tell. Nor can he seem to stop talking, even as he leans his head back against the top of the armchair and rolls it around. “I’m filthy rich. Do you remember how poor I used to be? Fresh from the forest with clothes my mother had sewn – eyes wide as dinner plates when I saw some of the gems the ladies of the court wore!” Another memory: “You gave Guinevere a necklace of rubies three deep, the week before she killed them…”

A chill settles over the room. Cold as the mortuary – as the stone chamber in which Galahad and Lancelot had been laid out for burial, still wearing the armor that had been no protection from Guinevere’s spell. Morgana’s spell, really. That Morgana had seduced Guinevere with promises is no mystery. Promises of how much better life would be if Arthur’s lover were dead – promises of how good vengeance would feel, to get back at the knight who had turned down Guinevere’s advances towards having a lover of her own. Percival has wondered – they have all wondered, over the centuries – how far Guinevere had really thought it through. Or whether she had even been in her own right mind, or affected by magic herself, to think the double murder would gain her anything. Did she think Arthur would turn back to her if Galahad were dead? Did she think that killing Lancelot for the crime of _not_ cuckolding the King would be something any of the Knights could forgive?

Merlin clears his throat. “I persist in thinking the Queen could not have been of her own right mind,” he says to Arthur. “Morgana must have bespelled her.”

“Do you think so?” Arthur is studying his own, untouched glass. He doesn’t look up. “You never knew her that well, did you? There was enough anger in her to have done it.”

“Entitlement,” Percival says helpfully. It’s not a word any of them would have known in Camelot, but it applies. “She thought differently of what being Queen would mean.”

“She had the crown,” Merlin protests. “She had the right to bear Arthur’s legitimate heirs. She had the leadership of the softer side of Camelot. What else did she expect?”

“Chastity,” Percival says with an ugly laugh. “Apparently.”

Merlin sniffs in a disapproval so old it predates the nation they are currently sworn to serve. “Just because she caught some damn fool romantic notions about monogamy – “

“Enough,” Arthur says wearily. “We’ve gone through this a thousand times.”

“I haven’t,” Merlin says, but subsides.

Percival tries to take another swig, but his glass is empty. Merlin plucks it from his fingers and hands it to Arthur. It comes back to Percival mercifully full, and he immediately sets to work emptying it again.

“We all wanted to change the world,” he says mournfully. “But the world Guinevere wanted wasn’t the world we wanted.”

“Morgana must have tricked her,” Merlin repeats. “She can’t have been so foolish as to think Arthur would give up his _eromenos_ , just for having married. Why, the mere fact that she approached Lancelot – ”

There’s a shattering sound. Percival looks down and discovers that he’s dropped his glass. It’s shattered, leaving shards all over the floor, along with dregs of liquor. Something else is splashing down among it, as if liquid is still being poured out, but the glass is gone.

Something appears in Percival’s field of vision. A box of tissues. Percival takes one and discovers that he’s weeping.

And angry. “She couldn’t have her beloved so she tried to steal mine,” he snaps, throwing the tissues away. It’s only a cardboard box, though, and the sound it makes when it hits the walls of Arthur’s office is supremely dissatisfying. “And then she murdered _him_ for saying no. Where’s the justice in that?”

“No justice,” Arthur says.

Percival puts his face into his hands. “Why do I still believe in justice?” he asks.

No one answers him out loud. Merlin puts a hand on his shoulder. But there _is_ an answer, and from his memories, Lancelot gives it: _without justice there can never be peace._

Tomorrow always comes. Even when, once again, it’s a tomorrow without Lancelot.

Without looking up Percival begins, “Chester – ”

“One of these days I’m going to murder him,” Harry says. He says it perfectly calmly and is deadly serious. Percival laughs, in spite of himself.

“Thank you,” Percival makes himself say. It goes against the grain to have to pander to that pretender, and on a day like today he’s simply got no patience to spare. But they’re not in Camelot anymore. He’s long started to doubt that they will ever be in Camelot again, no matter what the Lady of the Lake had promised, all those lifetimes ago.

“Forget Chester,” Merlin says surprisingly. “I told you I had something new.”

“What is it?” Harry asks.

Merlin taps at his ever-present tablet, and the portrait in Harry’s office – a rather unfortunate Queen Victoria – dissolves to show something else. An arrest report. A photograph.

Harry goes still.

“I just got the report back from the agent I sent to rescue young master Unwin from the Holborn police station,” Merlin says. “Arthur – ”

“It’s him,” the once and future king says, almost choking. “It’s Galahad.”


	3. Chapter 3

Harry almost trips on his way out of the subterranean train, only a dozen lifetimes’ worth of reflexes keeping him on his feet as he all but lunges for the elevator up to the dressing room. If he were thinking, he’d be grateful that there is no one to see him as he taps his foot impatiently during the forty-five-second long rise of the elevator, nor as, behind the wheel of the Kingsman car, he ruthlessly violates every traffic law in England. If the woman currently sitting on the throne doesn’t even need a driver’s license, Arthur Pendragon certainly doesn’t need to obey the speed limit.

The whole way to Holborn, Harry’s chewing over what little he knows. Merlin had transferred the entire file to his phone, and Harry had spent the ride back from the estate reading and rereading it. There are mysteries and puzzles galore, but the biggest one is simple: Galahad is too young. Always before, _always_ , they had met around the time of Arthur’s thirtieth birthday. And though Galahad is customarily Arthur’s junior, it’s never been by a significant amount. In this lifetime, if Harry had met Gary upon that milestone, his beloved would have been an infant.

“It explains the delay in yer reunion,” Merlin had offered, via earpiece, when Harry had contacted him from the bullet train to share his shock and dismay. “I’ve only had a few decades to map Morgana’s spell, but the bindings around ye and Galahad are the heaviest I’ve ever seen. They’re loaded down with conditionals. The spell might even have actively kept ye apart until Galahad had reached a majority; it certainly wouldn’t have tugged ye together.”

Harry had used to wonder why Guinevere had wanted it this way. The reality has proven to be terrible enough, but if the notion of an endless number of lives with Galahad had been put to Arthur in Camelot, he would certainly never have considered it revenge. Guinevere had wanted revenge for the wrongs she’d thought had been done to her. Why craft a spell that would ensure Arthur and Galahad would always be together, even if only for a short while?

But there – Harry knows better now. Merlin may not yet know much about the spell, it may take him lifetimes to map it, but one thing he had been able to tell them right away, after he’d awoken into this life for the first time since Camlann. The spell is not of Guinevere’s making. All this time, the four surviving knights of Camelot had thought that Guinevere had merely sought out Morgana for her knowledge, and that the magical work itself had been Guinevere’s. This is untrue. Guinevere had assisted in the casting, had provided her blood to power the spell, but the crafting of it had been Morgana’s. And what Morgana wants, none of them have yet been able to guess.

As Harry pulls over and slides the car expertly into the conveniently open space in front of the Holborn station, he dismisses such thoughts temporarily from his mind. Galahad is here. For the next short while – aided by the fact that Merlin has already put Harry on ‘medical leave’ for his ‘radiation exposure’ – nothing else has to matter.

Harry’s earpiece chimes as he exits the car, and Merlin’s familiar voice is heard once again. “Galahad’s release has gone through. He should be coming out – ”

“Now,” Harry whispers. His eyes are already resting, at long last, on his beloved’s familiar form. Harry would have known Galahad from his gait alone, from the sunshine glinting on his golden hair, even from the well-known look of disgruntlement Galahad aims over his shoulder at the building behind him. Arthur can see the deeper, self-directed annoyance that the outward disgruntlement hides. Galahad had judged others, but he had been most severe upon himself. Harry moves towards him, already aching to take his beloved into his arms.

Galahad sees him coming. But instead of lighting up with joy, instead of even a spark of recognition, Galahad stops dead. And stares at Arthur – at Harry – with suspicion.

“You let me go already,” he says rudely. “No takesies backsies. I’m out. So fuck off.”

Harry stares at him in astonishment, and as so often happens to him when he’s astonished, his mouth runs away without him. “Of course I’m never going to let you go!”

Galahad takes a step back, and his hands come up. His face tightens from disgruntlement to outright hostility. “You ain’t police,” he says with unerring confidence. His gaze rakes Harry from top to toe. “You ain’t with Dean, neither. So what is it? You looking to muscle in on his territory? Or just picking up fresh blood? Know what – don’t matter. I’m _out_. Hear me?” He looks meaningfully over his shoulder. “I just got my record wiped clean, so don’t even think about pulling anything. You try something with me and I walk right back in there, a good little citizen calling for help.”

“I’m – I’m not – ” Harry is aware that he’s fumbling, but he’s truly lost. A dozen dozen lifetimes, and he’d have said he’d be prepared for anything. But Galahad is here before him, looking at him with hostility and not a hint of recognition. Arthur has no script for this.

“Keep it that way,” Galahad says shortly, apparently tired of waiting for Harry to find something meaningful to say. He turns on his heel and strides past Harry, down to the corner and very nearly around it before Harry comes to his senses.

“Wait – _wait_!” Harry hates to see the way Galahad’s shoulders tense when he hears Harry’s voice, but Harry will do anything to keep him from walking out of his life again. He runs after Galahad and comes around to his front, making Galahad stop through the simple expedient of blocking the only forward-moving path through London foot traffic. Several other people curse Harry roundly, and he gets buffeted on both sides, but Harry ignores this to focus on the man before him. His hands flutter helplessly, wanting to touch, but Harry makes them still. Instead he meets Galahad’s eyes and says, plaintively, “Don’t you _recognize_ me?”

Galahad rocks back on his heels, eyebrows climbing to the top of his forehead. “Bruv, I ain’t never seen you before in my – wait.” Now those eyebrows snap together; Galahad’s marvelously expressive face takes on a look of intense concentration. “Wait just a… God. Yes. Yes, I _do_ fucking recognize you.” Harry’s heart leaps, and he’s about to break out into song from sheer relief, when Galahad says, “You’re the one who gave me my medal.”

Harry gapes at him. The medal – Lee’s medal – well, of course, this is Lee’s son – by God, Harry _had_ given him the medal. He’d forgotten. He’d clean forgotten. Twenty years ago and more, Harry Hart had gone to the home of Michelle Unwin, widow, and Gary Unwin, new-made fatherless child. He’d given them the bad news and hung the medal around young Gary’s neck, and then gone his way without so much as the flicker of a memory. In all the years since, Harry had thought of Lee, from time to time; of Michelle, occasionally, when confronted – rarely, thank God – by a crying blond woman. And of Gary Unwin – not at all.

Gary Unwin. Who is Galahad. Harry had been in the same room with him. But early – too early. Galahad had been a child. They’ve never met as children. The youngest Arthur has ever been has been a few years shy of thirty. Galahad had been sixteen, in Camelot. But he had been – what? Four? Five? When Harry had come to give Lee’s son the medal. Too young. Far too young. And Harry hadn’t recognized him.

And now Galahad doesn’t recognize _Arthur_.

“Right?” Galahad demands, when Harry doesn’t answer him at all. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Harry says, grasping at this. He knows very little of what is going on, but two things are immediately clear. One is that he must get Galahad in front of Merlin as soon as possible. And the other is that the Kingsman medal gives Harry an excellent excuse for doing so. “I am. And I’m offering you the chance to finish what your father started.”

* * *

_The lawns that surround up the Hartsfield estate roll lush and verdant, a vista spread out before Harry’s study. He stares out over them from his seat behind the massive desk. In his hand, a pen drips, forgotten. Nor is he truly seeing the vision before him. The war may be over, but all Harry can see are the bodies._

_One in particular._

_The war to end all wars, they’re calling it. Harry can only laugh. He’s lived too many lives to believe such a lie. Fought in too many wars to believe they will ever end. Conflict is in humanity’s nature. Once, in Camelot, Arthur had believed that that nature could be suppressed. Could be channeled into other things, better things. The destruction of his kingdom had been the destruction of that beautiful dream. And the violence of this war among wars had been the death of his beloved._

_Even the day they had met, Harry had already felt the shadow of loss._

 

_“We've moved quickly this time.” Harry presses a kiss against Gareth’s bare shoulder. “It usually takes a while for us to end up in bed.”_

_Gareth rolls over and finds the sweet spot between Harry's ear and throat. “Is that a problem?”_

_Harry sighs. “It could be. Maybe we're moving quickly because we're not going to have much time together. Maybe one of us is going to die as soon as we set foot on French soil.”_

_“When did you become such a pessimist, Arthur?”_

_“Verdun, maybe.” Harry closes his eyes but he can't block out the memory of that endless and futile battle. Men dying by the hundreds for mere inches of land. “Or maybe it's just fourteen hundred years of loving you and losing you to the inevitable.”_

_Gareth threads his fingers through Harry’s hair, gently stroking, soothing. “Trouble will come soon enough; there’s no need to pay interest by borrowing it early.”_

_Harry opens his eyes and musters up a smile for Galahad. “I'm sorry, my love. This time, this version of the world, it's made me a little strange.”_

_“Was Verdun that bad? I've read the reports in the newspapers, but I'm certain that the reality was much worse.”_

_“Remember Bajadoz?”_

_“How could I forget? Thousands of British soldiers dying needlessly in the first few hours of the siege. And then the aftermath – tens of thousands of angry, drunken British troops rampaging through the town, raping and killing innocents? It was as if Henry Plantagenet's threat at Harfleur had finally come true.”_

_“Verdun wasn't the same as Bajadoz – not the ending – but the beginning, with all of the unnecessary casualties. Men dying by the hundreds, the thousands, and just to gain a few feet of soil that they'd lose the next day.” Harry’s voice slows as he speaks. Something ancient takes hold of him from beyond the veil, a vision rising before his eyes._

_“Arthur? What is it?” Galahad pulls back, enough to look his king in the eyes. “You’ve grown fey all of a sudden.”_

_“Just a feeling,” Harry says, throat thick. The premonition creeps over him like a fog and he's stood on too many battlefields to dismiss it. Two days in London and then he's going back, and bringing Galahad with him, likely to die._

_The future sight is given to Arthur rarely, but unlike the muddled portents of the seers, when Arthur Sees, it comes to pass. Galahad dies on the slopes of Vimy Ridge, blown to pieces by a German mine that the British Engineers had missed. Arthur had been miles away on the Red Line when he’d felt the loss like a bullet to the heart. Unable to abandon his men and risk the offensive, it had been nightfall before he’d been able to go looking for Galahad’s body. There had been none. Nothing to hold, nothing to bury. Nothing to bid farewell._

_Arthur had survived. Henry Reginald Hart had returned home to his family’s estates, and here he sits, surrounded by luxury and comfort and utterly alone. His nearest relation in the world is a nephew he’s never met. Lancelot had succumbed to trench fever; Percival is countries away, working to rebuild France, resisting demobilization and the emptiness that follows. His letters to Arthur have been long scrawls of despair. The whole world is reeling from the loss of so many._

_From that loss had come an idea. Percival had had it first, actually; he himself had had no noble antecedents in this life, but Lancelot had been wellborn, and Lancelot’s father is far from the only lord with no heir.  England is full of grieving old men with no hope left for the future. It’s a far cry from Camelot, which had been built by fresh-faced youths full of airy dreams and hopes as high as the heavens. But there is something gathering here nonetheless. Not Camelot, but something new. Something that whispers to Arthur that the time may be right for a new kind of Round Table._

_Harry blinks the ghosts of the past from his eyes and looks down at the papers before him, the draft charter he’s drawing up for the organization that will be called Kingsman. Not for the first time he wishes that Merlin were here to advise him. He misses his wizard’s counsel in every life, but never so acutely as now, when he finds himself trying to create something new and lasting for the first time since Camelot. But Merlin sleeps still under the Tree, and nothing any incarnation of Arthur has been able to do has woken him up. He doesn’t yet know that it will take the atomic bomb, a lifetime from now, to disturb Merlin’s magical slumber._

_Merlin or no Merlin, though, the call is strong in Arthur’s blood, and it gives him a reason to go on, even though Galahad is once again gone from him._

_Harry refills his pen and returns to his work._

* * *

“I don’t understand,” Merlin says blankly.

Harry presses his hand to the glass of the one-way mirror. On the other side, the candidates for Lancelot’s knighthood are stowing their gear and writing names on body bags. One of them is Roxanne Morton, Percival’s niece in this lifetime, and someone Arthur would have been proud to welcome to Camelot. Another is Galahad. Or, as he apparently prefers to be called, Eggsy.

“He doesn’t know me, Merlin.”

“How can that be?” Merlin throws his hands up in exasperation. “That’s not how this _works_ , Arthur! The spell is insanely complicated, aye, but the elements binding ye to yer knights are ironclad. Ye should all know each other instantly on yer first meeting. Which, if it doesn’t occur naturally, should be compelled after ye reach yer respective majorities.”

“And yet,” Harry says, “I met Galahad when he was only a child. And that time, neither of us recognized each other. I have to wonder – ” he swallows. “Merlin, when I recognized him yesterday, it was from his photograph. Not in person. And you and Percival were with me. If I had passed him on the street, would I have known him?”

“Impossible,” Merlin says, shaking his head. “Of course ye would have.”

“Improbable, I’ll give you, old friend.” Harry tips his head towards the candidates in the room, now settling down for what they believe will be a peaceful night’s sleep. “But watch. I think I know what we’re about to see.”

Merlin grumbles to himself, pulling out his tablet and poking at it while the candidates toss and turn and finally, under the influence of the redshifted lights and the melatonin added to their evening meal, fall into a deep slumber. Halfway through the wait the tablet proves insufficient and Merlin resorts to drawing symbols in the air with his fingers, golden shapes glittering brightly and then fading as he wipes them away with impatient swipes of his hands. Harry knows better than to disturb his wizard when Merlin gets into one of these moods. He keeps his own counsel, watching Galahad and thinking of the many other times in history they’ve stood vigil over each others’ sleep.

Just past midnight it happens. The floodgates open and water begins filling the room. Merlin stops in his tracks – there’s something about moving water, he’s explained before, that interferes with magic – and snatches his tablet-wand back up, watching intently.

Harry knows what Merlin expects to see. What he himself would have expected to see, before today. Galahad had died in the trenches before the founding of Kingsman, but he’d returned in time to hold a knighthood – the one named after him, that time – in the years after the second world war. The basics of the tests haven’t changed. The hydronics are more advanced; Amelia has a microscopic rebreather tucked into her cheek instead of needing an iron lung capacity. But Galahad should know that someone in the room is a plant. He should know that the true test is rescuing that person, rather than escaping. Kingsman’s tests were designed to make it easy for those who knew the trapdoors to sneak through.

Galahad should know. Eggsy Unwin does not. He punches his way through the two-way mirror, demonstrating a thorough knowledge of the use of leverage to overcome the dampening effect of being submerged. Behind him, Amelia ‘drowns’ unobserved. Eggsy sprawls, panting, at Harry’s feet, looking up at him with a curious mix of defiance and determination. Harry looks down at him and feels his heart wrench.

“Do you believe it now?” Harry asks Merlin, uncaring of the many ears present. Let the candidates guess at his meaning; only Merlin truly understands it, and Merlin nods, shock plain enough on his face that even some of the candidates recognize it for what it is.


	4. Chapter 4

Percival steps briskly out onto the sidewalk and leans back, the better to appreciate the architecture before him. Lancelot would have loved it; it’s hideous, neo-Brutalist clearly constructed in haste after the Blitz had destroyed whatever more beautiful building had originally stood here. It’s also the building in which Professor James Arnold had taught classes before his kidnapping had started the chain of events which had led to Lancelot’s death. Percival intends to begin his investigation here.

There’s a steady flow of passers-by, the usual London mix flavored by a higher-than-usual proportion of students. Percival joins the eddy heading into the building. In his suit and carrying his umbrella, he attracts his share of sideways looks, but a bookish expression on his face and the occasional diffident fiddle with his glasses deflects most of them again. He looks like a new professor on his first day. No one is curious about what a junior professor is doing.

James Arnold, on the other hand, is a very senior professor indeed, and as such his classroom has a prestigious location on an upper floor facing the street. Percival has checked the school’s schedule and chooses a moment between classes. The room should be empty; perfect for a quiet search.

The room is not empty.

“Can I help you?” Professor Arnold asks, smiling encouragingly at Percival. As if he hadn’t been kidnapped and held in a villa in Argentina a week ago. As if Lancelot hadn’t _died_ trying to rescue him.

There are probably better ways to go about this. Percival forgets them all in a hot flash of anger. “You damn well better be able to,” he says, shedding his mild-mannered air and taking a step forward that is made of pure menace. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I teach here, young man.” Arnold’s tone is perfect: mild reproof flavored with gentle amusement, a man secure in his profession being generous in overlooking an ill-tempered outburst by a junior.

“Not as of three weeks ago,” Percival says, deadly quiet.

“Oh.” Now it’s Professor Arnold’s turn to undergo a sudden change. The friendly demeanor sloughs off; the smile he levels at Percival turns chilling. “You’re one of them. She told me you’d come.”

“She?” Information: a woman is involved. Percival files it away. He needs more. “Let’s start with a name.”

“You know her name.” Professor Arnold tips his head to the side. “And I think I know yours. She said there were three of you, but the one likeliest to find me was… Percival.”

Ice slides down Percival’s spine. Arnold could be speaking of a code name for a Kingsman agent, but Percival doesn’t think so. There are eleven – no, Lancelot is gone – there are _ten_ active Kingsman knights, not three. And anyone infiltrating Kingsman’s ranks would know that Chester King would be _least_ likely to allow Lancelot’s lover to pursue Lancelot’s killer.

But there is someone else who might be able to guess that Percival would come regardless. Who would know that Percival is one of four – with Lancelot gone, _three_ survivors of an ancient realm. And that person is, in fact, a woman…

Percival feels his lips shape the name. _Morgana._

“You should be grateful,” Professor Arnold says. He tilts his head further to the side, and suddenly Percival sees it: a flashing red light on the side of Arnold’s neck, pulsing under the skin. “Your death will be swift. But I have a message for Arthur, if he’s listening, from my Lady mistress: _you will not be so lucky.”_

Percival sprints towards the window, flinging his umbrella open behind him as he goes. He almost makes it out. Almost. Then there’s a sensation of pressure, of heat, of velocity, and everything goes black.

* * *

_The night before Percival becomes a squire feels like the longest of his life. He knows that there will be worse ahead, that the Knights’ Trial is an ordeal far more to be feared than the Squires’ Vigil – the latter requiring only that the would-be squire pass the night in darkness, in prayer, and in meditation. At the same time, though, Percival thinks that should he ever make it so far, there will be a measure of relief, too. All that will stand between Percival and knighthood then will be his own abilities. He will stand or fall accordingly, and accept the verdict as the judgement of God and the Lady of the Lake. But now? Gone are the days where brave actions alone can earn a knighthood. In order to be a knight, Arthur has decreed, one must first be a squire. And that is not under Percival’s control. He can train extensively, and he has; he can study hard, and he has. But in the end, if no one will have him for a squire, then Percival will never be a knight._

_Three years he’s been in King Arthur’s court. Only three years, the Master of Pages says kindly, and Percival can’t dispute that he’s still a beardless youth, a year short of the coveted age of majority. If Percival fails to be chosen this Midsummer, there will be another. At least one more, the King himself has promised it, before Arthur’s largesse runs dry and Percival will no longer be able to remain at court. He has no wealth to support him; his mother’s lands are small, and all forest or modest farm. It’s the King’s bread Percival eats at every meal, and he knows it._

_If Percival becomes a squire, he becomes the responsibility of his liege knight. Not all knights can afford the expense. Not all who could afford it care to. It’s more than food and board. Unlike pages who are expected to keep quietly at court, a squire follows their master wherever they go, including into battle. A squire requires a horse, a suit of mail, better weaponry than that handed out by the Master of Pages. And there are few knights in King Arthur’s court. Competition for a squire’s billet is fierce._

_These are the thoughts that keep Percival company during the long night of his Vigil. He ought to be thinking of his family, of his calling, of his King. Perhaps he still has a long way to go._

_There’s a creaking sound – the door to the chamber being pulled open. Percival blinks until his eyes adjust. The Master of Pages is standing in the doorway. He gazes down on the rows of pages kneeling – theoretically in prayer, realistically in a stupor. Percival can’t make out his expression._

_“Gareth, Lamorak, Percival,” the man says. “With me. The rest of you, return to your duties.”_

_Hope stirs in Percival’s breast. Does that mean – ?_

_Gareth is braver than he, and asks the question. “We were chosen?”_

_The Master of Pages nods. “I will conduct you to your new masters.”_

_Percival’s legs feel like blocks of wood after his night’s vigil, but he stumbles to his feet regardless. Lamorak nearly fails to come upright. Percival reaches out to help him, but Lamorak gains his balance, though not without giving Percival a thankful nod. The Master of Pages regardless this byplay with a stony face. Percival finds himself wondering what Sir Lancelot would think of Percival’s instinctive generosity. On the practice-fields, Lancelot has consistently deplored it. But surely between comrades…_

_Lancelot. All night long Percival has forbidden himself, to the best of his ability, to think of the beautiful knight. Now, knowing that someone has selected him to be their squire, his willpower utterly fails. Could it be he?_

_As if to mock Percival, the Master of Pages leads them first to the chambers of Sir Kay, where Gareth is welcomed into his new service, and then to Sir Gawain’s, whither Lamorak is placed. Finally the Master of Pages takes them into the oldest halls, not far from where Arthur himself has residence. With every step Percival’s heart beats faster._

_It’s not as if Percival were building a castle on air. Lancelot’s interest in the young page had not slackened after their first meeting. Percival had stumbled out to the practice field the next day in the hour before dawn, more than half-expecting to find himself alone, or perhaps met by the knight’s squire, sent to give him a few lessons out of pity or generosity. But Sir Lancelot himself had been waiting. Had tutored Percival patiently – even kindly. And though the demands of being a knight of the round table had often called Lancelot from Camelot, Percival had learned to count on it: if Lancelot were at court, he would be at the practice field, too. At the first hour before dawn, never failing. Percival has not imagined that. He might have imagined the encouragement in Lancelot’s voice, or the approval in the knight’s eye when Percival masters a form. But the fact of Lancelot’s recurrent presence is indisputable. Percival clings to that as the Master of Pages comes to a halt and bangs on a door._

_There’s a moment of silence. The door opens, and Percival’s heart falls. The man on the other side is a stranger._

_He’d thought he’d done so well in controlling his expectations. He’d thought –_

_“Ah, Galahad,” the Master of Pages greets. “Here is young Percival. Your master should be expecting us?”_

_Percival blinks, then takes a second look. The man who had opened the door is certainly Percival’s senior, but not by as much as Percival had first thought. The torches here are playing tricks with his vision. He blinks again, trying in vain to dispel the halo created by the flickering light and the stranger’s golden hair. Who is the stranger’s master? And then another thought, sudden and welcome: the Master of Pages, usually a stickler for etiquette, had not addressed the stranger with the honorific_ sir _._

_“He is indeed,” the stranger called Galahad agrees. “He bids me say he regrets he is slightly delayed this morning, but Percival is expected and may take up his duties at once.”_

_“At once, eh?” The Master of Pages grins. “Shirking already?”_

_Galahad grins, too. On him it’s a vision of ethereal beauty. Percival experiences a wash of emotions all at the same time: rising lust, helpless admiration, envy, and a sinking feeling as he begins to put the pieces together. Galahad says, “Since his Majesty has already promised that my knightly duties will begin at once, I’m afraid my shirking days are over.”_

_“Excuse me, m’lord,” Percival ventures. “You are to be knighted this Midsummer?”_

_Galahad turns that radiant smile on Percival, and accompanies it with a nod. “Aye, lad, never fear. A surprise for you to be sure, to come to your new master’s chambers and find a squire already there! But I’ll linger only long enough to show you your new duties, and then I’ll begin my own life as a knight.”_

_“With honor, I’m certain,” Percival says politely._

_“Well, get on with you, then,” the Master of Pages says indulgently. “I’ve no time to nursemaid a squire. Best of luck, lad.” He’d said as much to Lamorak and Gawain, and also awarded them a clap on the shoulder strong enough to nearly drive Lamorak to his knees; Percival, warned by experience, stiffens his knees and takes the meaty hand’s impact with aplomb. The Master of Pages turns and stumps off, satisfied with his morning’s work._

_Percival is not nearly so satisfied. He turns back to Galahad. “I’m ashamed to admit,” he says disingenuously, “but I’m not so familiar with the palace halls as I perhaps ought to be. Er…_ whose _knight’s chambers are these?”_

_Galahad beckons him inside and closes the door with the same screech it had made upon opening. “That’s gotten worse,” he mutters. “We’ll oil it before Lancelot returns. Oh!” He seems to hear Percival’s question then, and once again that grin makes its appearance. Percival is already sick of it. “Sir Lancelot’s, of course. Why, can it truly be a surprise? Lance made no doubt you’d known he intended to take you as squire.”_

‘Lance’? _An day ago, Percival would have said that being squire to his long-time idol was the height of his ambition. He would have told his hypothetical interlocutor that he admired Sir Lancelot’s skill with a sword, envied his easy seat on a horse, and strove to emulate his nice sense of honor. But a day ago Percival would still have been a page. Now he is a squire, a bare year short of his majority, in possession of a body that has gone through strange changes and is now capable of new and fascinating things. And one word from this golden god has destroyed Percival’s illusions forever._

_But how can Percival ever compete? He gazes on Galahad with despair. He’s as beautiful as Lancelot, and a study in contrast. Golden where Lancelot is dark, muscled where Lancelot is wiry, shorter where Lancelot is tall. Percival can immediately see the way the two would complement each other, both on and off a battlefield. And Galahad is soon to be a knight. What hope can Percival have, an ungainly, still-beardless youth only at the beginning of a squire’s service?_

_“Percival?” Galahad prods. He begins to look discomfited. “Had you really no inkling?”_

_Percival clears his throat. “I couldn’t even be certain of selection,” he says modestly. “To hope for a particular knight’s favor…”_

_“Oh, come now. Surely you had a wish?”_

_“I keep my wishes under control.” Percival wishes he felt as firm as he sounds. “I am, of course, very grateful to Sir Lancelot.”_

_“Grateful,” Galahad echoes. “Certainly.”_

_Something about this makes Percival bristle. “Surely you are grateful as well?” he challenges._

_“Hmm?” Galahad blinks at him. “To Lance?”_

_“You certainly don’t speak of him with respect,” Percival snaps before he can think better of it. “Don’t you think you owe more to your Lord?”_

_Galahad stares at him. “To my – oh!” Inexplicably, he relaxes. “You don’t know. Lancelot is my cousin.”_

_“Your cousin?”_

_“Aye, our mothers are sisters. And it’s my mother married the lord, actually. Not to say Lance isn’t wellborn!” he adds hastily, as if he’s afraid he’s caused Lancelot to somehow fall in Percival’s opinion. “Naturally, both our mothers – but I’m the one who’ll inherit. So you’ll understand the relationship is somewhat complicated, and we both agreed it would be best if we kept precedent out of it entirely. He’s just my cousin, that’s all. It’s hard for me to see him as a glorious untouchable knight when he used to duck my head in the water-trough when we were little. And no doubt he’ll have the same trouble when I come into the title,” Galahad finishes fairly._

_Percival’s head is spinning. Cousins, and not just cousins, but mothers’ sister-sons, a bond of family very nearly as close as brothers. Grown up together, too, by the sound of it. Why, but no one could envision one such as a – well, as a – but that must mean –_

_His voice nearly squeaks. “So that’s how you came to be Sir Lancelot’s squire?”_

_Galahad nods cheerfully. “When he saw how demanding it would be as one of the Round Table, he realized he couldn’t wait for you to be old enough before he had a squire’s help. I wanted to come join the fun anyway, and Arthur had just decreed that any new knights had to be squires first. So Lancelot wrote me to come join him, and Arthur promised he’d knight me as soon as you were of age.”_

_“As soon as_ I _was of age?” Percival can hardly believe it. “You mean – you mean, for all this time, Sir Lancelot has – has wanted me?”_

_“Do you think he gets up an hour before dawn to train youths he doesn’t value?” Galahad inquires mildly. “He never did for me. Left me to my father’s armsmaster, and told me I should be grateful for it, for he himself would have no patience for half so many mistakes as I made.”_

_“Now that’s nonsense,” Percival says, which is likely too forward, seeing as Percival has only just become a squire and Galahad will become a knight the following noon, but he can’t let that slander pass. “He’s the most patient man I’ve ever met – better than any of the teachers, and he never laughs or talks down, just helps me try it again.”_

_Galahad looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “Lord help me, but it’s just as bad as Lance’s letters made it out to be,” he mutters. “But it should be all right now.”_

_“What’s all right?” a new voice asks. Pleasant and well-modulated, and nearly as familiar to Percival as his own._

_Galahad smiles at his cousin. “Just giving your new squire the lay of the land.”_

_Percival turns and beholds Sir Lancelot. He must be new-come from the council chamber, rather than any more sweaty pursuit, for he wears no mail and his surcoat is clean. Lancelot smiles at him, whereupon Percival’s knees recall that they had spent the night kneeling in Vigil and that they are consequently weaker than is their wont._

_Lancelot smiles at Galahad, too, and in his smile Percival at last perceives the family resemblance between the cousins. “I appreciate it, and your help this past year, Galahad.”_

_“Tosh,” Galahad says. “Percival, if you ever need help – or someone to duck Lance’s head in the water-trough – I’m your man. Lance – ” He embraces his relation warmly. “The opportunity to serve the King is beyond value.”_

_“Oh-ho, serve him, is it?” Lancelot teases him. “You know very well that the moment you have your knighthood – ”_

_“Hsst!” Galahad puts a finger to his lips and smiles mysteriously. “There are children present.”_

_Percival would normally sputter at the slight to his age, but he forgets it in his interest at this piece of news. The King, it is well known, has no boon companion currently, no_ eromenos _, no lover of the battlefield. If Percival has understood Sir Lancelot aright, Galahad aspires to the position. If the regard were to be mutual – what a fine thing_ that _would be for Camelot and the knights! Even as a page Percival had understood that the Round Table is unbalanced without that traditional and necessary countervailing force. Worse, combined with Guinevere’s childlessness, it has set tongues to wagging, doubting their King’s prowess. Granted, they’ve only three years of marriage, but still people gossip. The King’s finally taking a lover will settle such rumors, which can only be to the good of the kingdom._

_And, best of all, it will mean Galahad will have many things occupying him. Too many, perhaps, to spend much time with his cousin. Percival will have Lancelot’s full attention. As he’s dreamed of. As he’d hardly dared hope._

_“Well, you’d better get along, anyway,” Lancelot tells Galahad. “You’ve got your own armor and equipment to prep. My prayers are with you for your triumph in the Trial.”_

_“And mine,” Percival says. He sincerely means it._


	5. Chapter 5

_“I have a message for Arthur, if he’s listening.”_ Professor Arnold’s voice issues from Merlin’s tablet; whether thanks to magic or technology or both, it’s not tinny at all, but as rich and calm as if Arnold is standing there in the room with them. _“From my Lady mistress – ”_

The recording dissolves into static. “That’s it?” Harry asks, frustrated. “I can’t believe – did the bomb go off early?”

Merlin shakes his head. “In theory, the glasses feed live to Kingsman,” he says grimly. “In practice, there’s always _some_ delay. In this case, the building Percival had tracked Arnold to was rebuilt after the Blitz, and constructed to resist another such. Concrete poured around lead sheeting. Then the university went and added a brick façade in the late nineties. If we set out on purpose to construct a building that would resist wireless connectivity, we couldn’t have done a better job, short of wrapping the whole thing in chicken wire. The place is notorious among students for being a cellular dead zone.”

“Our tech is better than a student’s cheap mobile,” Harry says, a simple statement of fact.

“And ye may thank that for the fact that we got anything from Percival at all,” Merlin says. “We didn’t lose him until he entered the stairwell, and then when he jumped out the window we got a few more gigabytes’ worth of data synced back before the explosion blew the tech all to tell. But that’s it. Whatever that message was, we’ll have to…” Merlin trails off.

Harry completes the thought stubbornly. “We’ll get it from Percival when he wakes up.”

Merlin glances up, then sets the tablet down and turns to face Harry fully. “Percival isn’t going to wake up.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Harry argues. “I know his injuries were bad – ”

“His injuries weren’t bad. They were fatal.”

That brings Harry up short. “You – you mean he – ” But that’s impossible. It’s not just that Harry had seen the retrieval team rush Percival into the medical wing, seen that the heart monitor is still tracking and the ventilator still pumping. It’s that Harry hadn’t felt the short, sharp stab of a light going out. In the quiet places of his soul, three lights still burn. Percival is still alive.

Merlin sighs. “No, he didn’t code overnight. He can’t. I’ve prevented it.”

“You’ve – ” Harry cuts himself off before he doubles down on making himself sound foolish. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest and raises a silent eyebrow. “Explain,” he orders.

“I can’t, not fully. But Percival’s injuries _should_ have been fatal. Lady knows I’ve seen it enough times.”

Harry chooses his words carefully. “The loss of magic has indeed been a great blow to medicine,” he says, “but the advances in technology have, at this point, more than made up the difference. Wounds that would have been lethal in Camelot are quite survivable today.”

“Can yer precious technology regenerate lungs that have burst due to overpressure?” Merlin demands. “Can it heal a heart shredded by grapnel? Machines can replace the work, but not the organs. Percival is alive simply because we got to him before his body finished shutting down.”

“So there’s no hope.” Harry’s heart sinks. Galahad doesn’t remember him, Lancelot is gone, and now Percival? But awful as this is for Harry personally, he tries to make himself look on the bright side. Over the lifetimes they’ve calculated a rough correlation between how far apart they perish and how long it takes them to be reborn. By dying so soon after Lancelot, Percival will likely be reunited with his beloved sooner. “Then we should… if you’re telling me he’ll never recover…”

“I’m afraid not,” Merlin says. “And that’s not the worst of it.”

Harry looks around. They’re in Merlin’s office, the better to listen to the recording from Percival’s glasses in private. That means the liquor is… there. Yes. Harry opens the cabinet with assurance, extracts Merlin’s twenty-five-year-old scotch, and pours himself a measure. Usually Harry would tease his wizard about the relative youth of his alcohol. There are many downsides to perpetual reincarnation, but wealth is not among them. King Arthur had drunk piss-pale ale that had been laid down only a summer before; Harry Hart rarely drinks anything less than a century old, unless the mere process of aging would ruin the drink. He has a regrettable taste for colas.

And he’s prevaricating, although within the confines of his own mind. Harry recaps the scotch, stows it, and retakes his seat. “All right, Merlin,” he says unwillingly. “What’s the worst of it?”

Merlin has watched the entire proceeding of Harry fetching himself a drink with uncharacteristic quiet. Not a single comment. Neither a jibe nor a scoff. He waits until Harry is comfortably seated, nods to himself, and says: “Lancelot is not reincarnating.”

Harry is glad he’s already set the glass down on Merlin’s desk. As it is, he narrowly makes himself release it in time to avoid breaking it. “Impossible.”

“What was it ye said to me? ‘Improbable, I’ll give you, old friend.’ But after Galahad failed to recognize ye, I grew afraid that the spell was breaking down. Forgive me – you and Percival were away from headquarters, and Galahad is still ignorant... I took Lancelot’s body out of storage.”

Harry waves this apology aside impatiently. They’ve all been around this carousel too many times to have much superstition left about their mortal remains. Given the way battle swirls around them, a burial is a luxury they rarely are afforded. “Lancelot, were he here, would have been the first to urge you to gain any information you could from his corpse. Cut to the chase. What do you mean, Lancelot isn’t reincarnating? The spell – ”

“Yes, the spell.” Merlin nods emphatically. “That’s exactly it. The spell is unraveling.”

* * *

_“So it’s a spell,” Lancelot says heavily. “A curse.”_

_Percival nods. “I’m afraid so.”_

_Arthur looks around him. The ruins where they stand barely deserve the name; there are hardly a handful of places where more than a few stones still gather together. Only the four of them, who remember Camelot, could have said with any certainty that the scattered masonry and rotted timbers had once been a shining castle upon a hill._

_“It’s gone,” Arthur says hollowly. “I dreamed of creating something lasting, something that would survive me…”_

_“Something did survive,” Galahad says fiercely. “_ Britain _survived. Before you this land was nothing but warring princedoms and wandering fiends. Now there is a country.”_

_“A country of men,” Percival adds. “Since the discovery of the Grail, demonic influences have all but vanished. There are children coming to adulthood right now who have never seen a fiend. Who do not know to fear them.”_

_“But no one knows why,” Lancelot says. He remains morose, barely lifting his gaze to the others before dropping it again to the stunted grass at their feet. “Arthur’s name should have been a beacon of hope for generations to come. But no one could even tell us where Camelot lay from our home villages. If we had not remembered the way – ”_

_“I hadn’t done it for the glory,” Arthur says. “At least I didn’t think I had…” He had had such good intentions. Such faith. Surely, a king needs faith? But how had his faith been rewarded? His kingdom lies in ruins, his loyal knights dead or, like him, trapped in a new hell. Merlin sleeps, and though they had searched, none of them had been able to find the shores of the Lady’s lake. Avalon has retreated back into its mists. Whatever right any of them might have earned to enter the Lady’s country had been lost with their deaths. Their_ first _deaths._

_“Of course every man wishes to think his deeds will survive him,” Galahad says. “But your deeds_ have _. And perhaps this is a chance to create new deeds.”_

_“Still thinking of this as a boon, cousin?” Lancelot shakes his head. “The Queen had nothing so gentle in mind. Let us compare histories. For me, this is my third lifetime since Camelot. The first is indistinct in memory; I think I had not properly awakened to myself before I died of a wasting fever. In the second, I thought I must be going mad – delusions of being a knight, when I had been born a farmer – and died when the healer’s cure went awry. Tell me, have any of you better stories to tell?”_

_There is a moment of silence. Then, slowly, Percival says, “In my fourth lifetime, which this is, I discovered that my beloved, whom I had thought lost to me forever, yet lived. And I could be with him again.”_

_Lancelot turns to him, stricken. “I didn’t mean – ”_

_“I don’t think Guinevere thought it through,” Percival says. “I don’t think she truly understood the nature of love.”_

_“The question is not what Guinevere understood,” Galahad disagrees. “The question is what_ Morgana _understood. Guinevere could not have shaped this spell. She only lent it power through her life-blood. The spell itself is of Morgana’s devising.”_

_“And she knew less of love than Guinevere,” Arthur says. “On that I would take my oath.”_

_Percival says, “She thought losing each other, over and over again, would break our spirits. But I know now what losing you is like, Lancelot. And I know that whatever time we have together in each of these new lives will be worth the pain.”_

_“Will you still feel that way in a thousand years?” Lancelot wants to know. “In two thousand?”_

_“I don’t know,” Percival says steadily. “Let us find out.”_

_“Can any spell truly last so long?” Galahad wonders. “Surely – I admit, I am the veriest novice when it comes to magic, but I listened when Merlin spoke, and he always said that no working could last indefinitely.”_

_Arthur looks out again over the ruins of Camelot. “Indefinitely, no,” he says. “But for a long time, yes. A spell must have a defined end. I fear…”_

_“Merlin sleeps,” Percival says. To the others, “The Lady told us so, when Arthur and I went to seek his aid after Morgana’s curse felled you both.”_

_“Merlin knew no better, I am certain,” Lancelot says swiftly. “He believed us all safe in the Lady’s country.”_

_Arthur shakes his head slowly, knowing his pain has written itself upon his features. “The Lady said that Guinevere’s spell, Morgana’s spell, perverted the natural order of things. We were all to have gone to Avalon to rest until it were time to build Camelot again. Merlin will sleep until that time. And we – I very much fear that we are accursed until that time, too.”_

_“But what then?” Strangely, Galahad sounds hopeful. “If the spell ends then – ’twould have been better to pass the years in Avalon, but we can endure this cycle. How long can it possibly be?”_

_“Careful,” Lancelot says. “The early Christians expected Jesus to return in their lifetimes. Our expectations may be just as confounded as theirs.”_

_“One day Arthur will return to Britain and Camelot will be renewed.” Galahad’s voice rings with certainty. “That is as sure as the sun rising in the east.”_

_“And supposing that that is_ not _the end date that Morgana chose?”_

_“Merlin will have something to say to all of this, when he walks among us again.”_

_“As he had something to say to her at Camlann?”_

_“Will we have hope, or sink into despair?” That’s Percival, asserting his place in the conversation at last. “I do not say that Avalon would not have been sweeter, but how many times, as Knights, were we called to leave the safety and beauty of Camelot to pursue a higher duty? Very well, this is not of our choosing: but we all took the same oath, to serve our King, and that oath is not dissolved by death. One day the moment will come. The mists will part, and Avalon will be revealed to us again; the Lady will return Excalibur to Arthur, and Merlin will stride back across the waters to stand at his side. Where will we be on that day, my brother knights? Will we be with our King?”_

_“Where else could we be? Bound as we are, I think escape is no option.” Lancelot sighs. “But I would fain be there out of courage than out of cowardice.”_

_Galahad smiles at Arthur, the same smile that had wrenched the heart in Arthur’s chest lifetimes ago, when Lancelot had presented his young cousin and new squire before the throne. “I will go where you go, my King, my beloved.”_

_Arthur swallows. The bravery of his knights shames him. He bows his head and accepts their fealty, and swears never to reveal how much he, himself, continues to battle despair. Camelot calls them; the spell binds them. And Galahad will remain at his side. As long as those things are true, Arthur will find a way to persevere._

* * *

“Unraveling?” Despite his efforts to maintain control, Harry’s voice climbs for the higher octaves. “How can a spell _unravel_?”

“Ye never did pay heed when I spoke of magic.” Merlin pinches the bridge of his nose. “All right. Let’s start simply. What do you recall of the Rules of Magic?”

“As little as I ever did,” Harry snaps. “I _do_ recall you being able to explain things without resorting to a dissertation each time.”

“Fine.” Merlin huffs. “Magic comes from the world. It draws its power from the arrangement of certain things, and affects the arrangement of others.” Harry nods to show he’s following. “When ye died at Camlann, the Lady she assisted me in shaping a sleep around myself.” A most unaccustomed look of guilt crosses Merlin’s features. “Neither of us knew yet that ye were accursed – I thought you would bide the centuries with the Lady in her fair land while I slept.”

This isn’t the first time this apology has been offered; nor, probably, will it be the last. Enough time has passed now that Harry is able to incline his head and accept it with grace. He’d be lying if he’d said he hadn’t been furious at first, waking into this nightmare of magic without the wizard by his side. But he’s had millennia to come to terms with his feelings of betrayal. He’d concluded, long before Merlin’s reawakening, that he could not possibly have known.

“Go on,” Harry urges now, as gently as he can manage.

“The sleep I was in should have lasted until it were time for you to return and rebuild Camelot.”

“But it didn’t.” Merlin has explained this before. “The atom bomb shook the world, and disturbed your slumber.”

“More than disturbed. It wasn’t an alarm clock. It was a radical rearrangement of the world. Not just socio-politically, Arthur. Magically. The very foundations shook. It snapped the sleep the Lady had laid on me like a twig. And now, when I look at the spell wrapped around ye all, I see the same thing. Morgana’s spell was cast when the world was arranged differently. It has stood for many a century, but the world has finally changed too much. It’s coming apart.”

“But – why now?” Harry leans forward, intent. “The atom bomb was generations ago. Why, we died in that same war and were reincarnated safely!”

“Magic doesn’t unravel all at once, especially not magic this complex and powerful. Think of it as a river creating a valley through a mountain range. It doesn’t happen overnight. The erosion had already begun when ye died last, I’d wager, but nowhere strong enough to threaten the spell yet. But now enough time has passed that we’re beginning to see its effects.”

Harry puts two and two together. “You don’t just mean Lancelot,” he says in horror. “You mean Galahad.”

“Aye.” Merlin nods. “Ye should never have been able to meet him so young; the spell ought to have prevented it, but it couldn’t. And then, when ye met, ye should have recognized him straight off, but again it failed. This is my fault too,” Merlin says miserably, “for not recognizing it sooner. In my defense I can only say that I never saw the spell when it was healthy. By the time I had found you again in this incarnation, the spell must already have been significantly degraded.”

Another mystery solved: Merlin has had an unwontedly difficult time studying Morgana’s curse, trying to decipher its twistings and bindings; this must be why. Harry would be glad of the new knowledge, except for its awful implications. “So Galahad will never remember me?” Despair, dark and twisted as any spell, settles in his gut. “His memories are lost?”

“Not lost; hidden. He is still Galahad. He simply doesn’t know it.”

Hope is like a draught of fresh water after a twenty-five-mile forced hike through the desert after a failed assassination in Riyadh, not that Harry would know anything about that. But no sooner has one fear temporarily been relieved than another rears its head. “But Lancelot – ”

“Aye.” Merlin bows his head.

The imagined sensation of water is gone; Harry’s throat is as dry and parched as it had been that week he’d spent trudging the sand dunes of Arabia. “He’s gone, then?” Harry can barely speak the words. “Forever?”

Merlin hesitates. “He may yet be.”

“Old friend, tell me the truth. No false hope.”

“Hope there is yet, my King. A small hope, to be sure, and it may yet prove in vain. But it is not false.”

Harry looks up slowly. Merlin has looked so fey only twice before, to his memory, and both times, what has followed has been world-shaking in its own way. “Tell me,” he says, then has to stop to clear his throat. “Tell me what you have done.”


	6. Chapter 6

_The seasons turn swiftly, in Camelot; scarcely has Midsummer come and gone than it seems that Longnight is upon them. There is a week of revelry, and Percival issues a range of foolish orders he’s spent half the year devising. Sir Lancelot carries them out willingly, even when Percival instructs him to wear a dunce cap and prance around like a horse. Percival nearly dies laughing. Lancelot himself wears a patient smile that makes Percival want to reassure him, promise him that Percival will have no less respect for him when the topsy-turvy days are over._

_Life as a squire contains all the lessons and effort and practice of life as a page, added to a bevy of added duties that come with having a liege lord. It’s a long time before Percival begins to feel as if he is completing all of his duties at least adequately. He owes much to his lord’s continued forbearance, and for a time Percival does all he can to honor it, both through diligence and humility. Perhaps too much of both. While Percival had certainly never been forward with Sir Lancelot before, becoming his squire has injected a level of formality that makes Percival feel keenly alone at times. The laughter they share on Longnight restores some of the relaxed nature of their previous relationship, and though the winter snows sweep Camelot unmercifully all through January and February, Percival finds a warmth within that comes from knowing he is valuable and valued to his liege._

_It’s past midnight one late winter night when Percival returns from the bathhouse to find the candles still burning in Lancelot’s study. The squires’ chances for bathing at least come more often than the pages’ did, and it’s a relief to know that after Percival mucks out the stables he needn’t resort to the often-icy river that runs past the castle. Call Percival fastidious, but he rarely misses the chance to visit on the allocated days. He’s noticed that Lancelot also goes often. Today Lancelot hasn’t; today he had spent long hours in the council chamber with the King and the other knights. This has been becoming increasingly common. Something is afoot, but none of the squires have yet picked up any inkling of what it might be._

_Percival wants nothing more than to fall onto his own cot and sleep, but the sense of duty is strong, and he is knocking at his master’s door before he stops to think. “My Lord?” he calls. “Have ye need of anything?”_

_Silence. Percival knocks again. Then, as he had been instructed when he had first come to be Lancelot’s squire, he pushes open the door. Just as suspected – Lancelot is asleep, snoring gently with his head on his desk, and the candles burning unattended around him. This happens occasionally; Lancelot had instructed him on how to behave. First Percival pinches out the candles, one by one, so that they no longer pose any threat. Then he goes softly into his master’s bedchamber, takes up the coverlet, and carries it back into the study to drape over Lancelot._

_Asleep like this, Lancelot looks not so much older than Percival. Indeed, though the gap in their years had seem vast when he’d first stared up at Lancelot from the grass of the practice field, now that Percival is bare months from his majority, the gap seems oddly small. They could have been brothers, though perhaps with a sibling or three between them. The thought makes Percival uncomfortable, though. He doesn’t want Lancelot for a brother. He wants…_

_Lancelot stirs briefly in his slumber, and Percival retreats hastily, fearful of waking the knight. If Lancelot is awoken mid-rest, he has difficulty returning to sleep; that’s one reason he’s instructed Percival not to wake him if Percival finds him asleep at his desk or anywhere else, but simply to make him as comfortable as possible and leave him be. Lancelot doesn’t seem to fall asleep easily in the first place, either. How often has Percival returned from a late night’s work in the armory, polishing and cleaning his lord’s mail and weapons, to find Lancelot still awake? On such nights, Lancelot will smile ruefully and make some excuse, sending Percival to slumber before Lancelot himself goes to his bed. That’s not how being a squire is meant to work._

_Well, tonight the world has remained in its proper shape. Percival closes the door to Lancelot’s study gently behind him, then stretches with a sigh. His master safely attended to, and all his chores done, Percival may at last find his own rest._

* * *

The repetitive beeping sound is driving Percival absolutely _crazy_. It’s worse than Lancelot’s alarm clock had been in India in the 1850s. Worse, Percival knows perfectly well that it’s no alarm clock he’s hearing: it’s a heartbeat monitor. He’s in Kingsman medical. And he can’t open his eyes.

Memory begins to filter back. Professor Arnold. The bomb he’d carried with him, all the way back to London – the bomb meant for one of them. Not a Kingsman, though Chester King will probably take it so. A Knight of the Round Table. And crafted by no mortal hand, but by Morgana le Fey.

Percival had leapt out the window, but known even as he’d done it that it had been a futile effort. The best the leap might have bought him would be a few more seconds. Minutes, at best. An ordinary bomb he could have survived.  But Morgana knows how to kill a knight. She’d proven that already, once upon a time in Camelot. The machines he’s hooked up to are only delaying the inevitable.

_I shall die soon. I should be dead already. Why hasn’t Arthur let me go?_

Well, perhaps there’s no great mystery there. Having so recently lost Lancelot, it stands to reason that Arthur would be loath to part with another of his knights so quickly. But Galahad is returned to him; he will not be alone. And neither will Percival be for long. Arthur may take a day or two to mourn, to fight against inevitability, but soon enough he’ll see reason. He’ll switch off whatever machines are keeping Percival trapped between life and death. Then Percival will once again be with his beloved.

“Good, you’re – well, _awake_ isn’t exactly the word, is it? But you’re lucid. I was beginning to think I hadn’t gotten to you in time.”

That voice. That _voice_. It’s as familiar to him as the shape of his body in this life. His sister’s daughter has been a delight ever since Percival had first dandled her on his knee; one of his last acts in this life had been to nominate her for Lancelot’s chair. For her to sneak into her hospital room to visit him is well within the range of her skills. For her to speak in that peculiar voice, with its distinctive resonance… he hasn’t heard that in centuries, in lifetimes. Percival very nearly manages to twitch in shock.

“Please don’t do that,” the Lady of the Lake scolds him. “Your current physical shell is only supporting life thanks to the combined efforts of Merlin and myself. Stress it any further and it really _will_ die on us. You don’t want that to happen.”

Percival stills out of sheer reflex, though since he had never actually been able to move in the first place, it’s entirely an illusion played out by his compliant mind. _The Lady. Here. Speaking in Roxanne’s voice… how?_

“ _How_ is a question you should know the answer to already, sir Knight. Hadn’t Merlin already taught you that the world shook when your people split the atom, and the Laws of Magic rewrote themselves? You went looking for Avalon a few hundred years after Camlann, and couldn’t find it. If you’d gone looking again in this lifetime, it would have been an entirely different story.”

Thoughts spin though Percival’s mind. Avalon – the Lady – the possibility of journeying there – how she might help them break Morgana’s spell – Morgana! He catches the last strand and focuses on it. Professor Arnold had said, _his Lady Mistress_. He had meant Morgana. She had appeared often, in the lifetimes after Camelot, seeming to delight in chasing the survivors down and murdering them again and again. But at length she had seemed to tire of her play. It has been centuries since they had last seen her.

“She, too, was sleeping,” the Lady tells Percival, once again following the chaotic jumble of his thoughts and answering the questions he cannot put aloud. “Like Merlin, she expected to sleep until the appointed Time. But all spells were disrupted when the atom split. She is awake, and furious.”

_Furious – why furious?_ Then Percival grasps the core of the matter, and he would gasp, if he had any control left over his body. _All spells –_ all _spells were disrupted? Including –_

“Including her curse. Oh, yes. Which is why Merlin daren’t let you die, and why I have crept in here in secret the last three nights, to reinforce his work where he will not see. If you die now, there will be no reincarnation. Nor could I bring you back to Avalon; the curse still lingers around you, and the mists will harden at the mere touch of its contamination. But as you are, you cling to life by a thread – and through you, the entire prophecy of Camelot come again.”

Percival reels. The entire prophecy – but of course –

“It’s too specific,” the Lady sighs in regret. “I told my sisters so at the time, but under the Laws as they were then, we had little choice. Arthur’s return depends not only on himself but on all the trappings of his kingship. Excalibur I hold close, and the other nights are safe in my country. But you, and Lancelot, and Galahad, are every bit as vital to the outcome of the prophecy. Without you, Camelot will never return. It will fade into legend, and Britain into obscurity.”

_No._ If Percival could, he’d be struggling to his feet, ready to do battle; as the matter stands – heh; Lancelot would laugh at the jest – the best service Percival can render his liege is apparently to lie still and prevent his fragile body from disintegrating utterly. He does so, but it goes against all the grain.

Then – despair. _Lancelot_ , he thinks. _Lancelot is dead. And if what you tell me is true –_

“Do not despair yet. Think ye so little of me? Never mind, don’t answer that. Anyone who would let Morgana among them… well, I’ll pick that bone with Arthur later.” For a moment the resonance fades from her voce, and she sounds only like Roxy, annoyed when someone else fails to live up to her high standards. Percival’s memories supply the image of his niece flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, the better to grace someone with a devastating look of utter disappointment. Then the resonance returns, and she says: “Lancelot is with you. Can’t you feel him?”

_Percy?_ The familiar voice whispers, improbably, in Percival’s ear. _Can you hear me?_

_How?_

“By the time your so-called ‘Arthur’ let me into the complex – ” by the mere way she spits the name, Percival knows she means Chester King and not the true Pendragon – “Lancelot’s body had degraded completely; there was no chance of stuffing him back in there, not by magic nor machine. But his soul was still present, haunting its old home. Fair enough, I suppose; he had nowhere else to go… and you were right here, Percival. I didn’t think you’d mind sharing.”

_Two dead men sharing a dying body,_ Lancelot says lightly. _I suppose it beats the alternative._ Underneath the lightness in his mental ‘tone’, Percival begins to sense other things: fear, relief, lingering terror. Lancelot may notice Percival looking, or may merely know Percival that well after all these lives, for Lancelot says, _You were incoherent for days after the explosion. I didn’t know a soul itself could be destroyed. The Lady couldn’t promise me that you would ever truly be yourself again... my beloved, I’m so glad I could cry._

“You haven’t got anything to cry with, and I absolutely forbid you to use Percival’s body to do it in,” the Lady says acerbically. “The two of you must do _absolutely nothing_. Keeping you from drifting off into oblivion is taking everything Merlin’s got.”

_And some he doesn’t_ , Percival thinks, _if you’re helping and he doesn’t know it._

“Well, Merlin did always have an ego the size of the Stone I left Excalibur in. No doubt he’s thrilled to think he’s managed to hold the two of you in this life all on his own.” Once again Percival imagines it: the rolled eyes, the rolling wrist as Roxy gestures dismissively. “Once Merlin realizes Galahad is the key, matters should unfold quickly. Once the spell is truly broken, you may both come to Avalon, as you always should have. I shall fashion you bodies of mist to wear until the Time comes and you are all born again. But until then, be still. I know it isn’t in your nature – but it is the only task left to you. Do it, and you will serve your king still.”

_We shall,_ Percival says firmly. Lancelot projects resolve and agreement.

There’s a faint physical sensation, there briefly and gone again, as if Roxy has squeezed Percival’s comatose hand. “Thank you,” she says. “I must go now. I will come again.”

_We will be waiting,_ Lancelot says.

The sense of pressure – and the sense of presence – withdraw. Even the ever-present beeping of the monitors seems to fade. With the Lady’s departure, there is no need to fight to remain aware of the waking world. Percival willingly lets it fade.

_My love,_ Lancelot murmurs. _It’s not what we could wish… but at least we are together._

_Yes,_ Percival agrees. And with nothing better to do, he lets himself drift, and they sink together into a dream from a memory.

* * *

_It may be blackest night outside the walls of the castle, but inside the torches remain lit, and soft-footed servants move purposefully through its corridors. Percival passes among them, unremarked; squires are about at all hours, subject to the needs or whims of the knights they serve. His path crosses with Lamorak’s in the armory, where he checks that Lancelot’s gear remains in good repair, and with Gawain’s in the stables. Percival doesn’t actually have any tasks to perform in the stables at the moment. He just likes to stop in and pet the horses’ noses. It reminds him of home, the forest and his mother’s lands._

_Tonight someone else seems to have had the same thought. Percival hesitates at the door, recognizing Galahad’s broad back and prepared to retreat if the knight needs the space. Galahad doesn’t even seem to take notice of him, though; he’s currying his horse, though the stallion hardly needs it. Galahad is clearly doing it more for himself than the horse, from the way he’s frowning off into space and occasionally shaking his head. Percival goes quietly past him and down to the far end of the stables, where the pages’ interchangeable mounts are kept. These ponies get less care than the knights’ or squires’ personal mounts, and are always appreciative of Percival’s attentions. Too, they’re far enough  from Galahad so that the knight may have his privacy, while still close enough that Percival will hear him should Galahad call for assistance. Galahad hasn’t taken a squire yet – as a new knight, it would be odd if he had – so the tasks that one would usually perform are farmed out to various pages and other squires. If Galahad needs someone to fetch a new brush or bring over his tack for checking, Percival will be ready to obey._

_But when Galahad looks up and calls out with a gentle smile, it’s not Percival’s name he speaks._

_“Arthur,” he says warmly._

_“Galahad,” Arthur greets in return, smiling back fondly and coming forward to share a brief embrace with the other knight. He looks around himself with an air of simple contentment. “To think I let them make me King – after a day like today, I realize that the happiest times of my life were spent in these stables, when I was squire to my adopted brother Kay.”_

_“You let them make you King because you are truly the best man to wear the crown – the worthiest, the noblest, the most honorable,” Galahad says with quiet conviction. “You could no more bear to stand by while some other man led us poorly than you could stable your horse after a long run without a blanket.”_

_“You know me too well,” Arthur admits. “Pass me that currycomb?”_

_Galahad looks down at his stallion for possibly the first time that day. “Any more brushing and he’ll have no hair left to brush,” he says with a rueful laugh. “Perhaps there are other horses that would benefit from the attention.”_

_“Never mind. I see some tack that needs mending.” Arthur takes it down off the wall himself, rather than calling any of the stable-boys that go back and forth on their evening tasks. The king is informally dressed in a linen shirt and soft-looking breeches, and he looks relaxed. He carries the tack over to the mending-table and sits down on a broad bench more than wide enough for two. “Join me?” Arthur nods to the seat beside him._

_“Perhaps not,” Galahad says playfully. “I shouldn’t want to interrupt the happiest times of your life.”_

_Arthur gazes on him with a look that makes a lump rise in Percival’s throat. “I find these stables suit me even better than my adopted father’s did,” he says. “You are here.”_

_Galahad blushes. Percival watches, fascinated, as Galahad moves closer to Arthur. Then he catches himself suddenly and turns away, cheeks flaming. He cannot see exactly what they do, but Percival is suddenly hot all over from imagining it. Gentle touches, and perhaps kisses, and certainly caresses…_

_When Percival next dares to look up, though, it’s over, and nothing more has been disarranged than Galahad’s hair where Arthur has twined his fingers in it. Galahad has settled into the seat next to Arthur on the bench, and taken up a bridle to polish himself._

_They talk quietly; their voices form a soothing background mutter as Percival goes from one pony to the next. The day’s council proceedings are one topic. Then there is a quiet period, and the next Percival can hear they are gossiping about Sir Kay’s last mission, sounding little different from the housewives of the village. Percival’s brushed all the ponies twice over, and the natural thing to do would be for him to depart for Lancelot’s chambers and his own cot, but he finds himself unwilling to do so: the mending-bench is right by the exit, and Percival’s passage would necessarily disturb the lovers._

_It’s not that he thinks the King or Galahad would be wroth with him. They know they’re not alone; beyond Percival, the stable-boys have been moving around as they tend to their nightly duties, and the horses whicker and stamp in their sleep. Galahad would greet Percival kindly, and Arthur would nod graciously in acknowledgement of his presence. But somehow Percival feels that moving, that leaving, would break the quiet intimacy that has sprung up around them. The village is asleep below them, the castle moving on with its quiet routines above them, and here in the stables the King and his_ eromenos _are enjoying each others’ company, unwinding after a long day with the simple pleasures of conversation and a task for the hands. And suddenly Percival_ wants _– wants so much that his very bones ache with it. He wants the same thing. He wants soft touches, gentle gestures, quiet conversation. He wants to feel with another person the way he feels coming to the stables. Warm, comforted, needed. It feels like a door has opened inside himself; Percival feels as if he has always wanted this, but never before seen that it could be so. Now that he knows, the longing threatens to overwhelm him._

_Percival forgets that he had been loath to leave. He thinks of nothing but satisfying the longing within him, the need to find home within another person. In a daze, he hangs the brushes back up, pets the noses of the ponies one final time, and leaves the stables. It’s feeding-time anyway; in the crowd of stable-boys and pages moving around, Percival passes unnoticed. His feet carry him to his chambers, Lancelot’s chambers, without his mind’s conscious thought – up the hill to the small kitchen entrance that’s closest, out into the main banquet hall and then back through the keep to the wing that houses the knights’ quarters. He passes through into their chambers and closes the door behind him, breathing deep._

_The door to Lancelot’s study is ajar, and through it, just exactly like coming home, Percival can see candles flickering._


	7. Chapter 7

“Harry…” Merlin says carefully.

Harry ignores him, staring at the blinking display. Six dots litter the neon-green screen, flashing every time the screen refreshes. The parachute backpacks the candidates are wearing are, of course, chipped, but Merlin is guarding access to those readouts jealously. Harry is reduced to tracking Eggsy via primary radar. He’s dot number three, Harry thinks. It’s hard to be certain, since primary radar is, by nature, unable to pick up on the idents being squawked by each candidate’s transponder.

“Harry, this isn’t healthy.”

“I’m not the one jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute,” Harry says innocently. “You _did_ give the blank to Eggsy, didn’t you?”

“There is no blank, Harry, and well ye know it,” Merlin snaps.

“He’ll think he’s got it, though.” Harry nods with certainty. This much he’s learned over watching Eggsy Unwin compete in the Kingsman trials: he may not have his memories, but he is still Galahad. Galahad is more than the sum of his many lives. Galahad is strength and purity of character and devotion to the people and causes he takes as his own. Eggsy may not remember Camelot, but he is himself in every essential. Harry would put down money, if Merlin were foolish enough to take the bet: Eggsy will be the last man in the air, and will land believing he’d been the chosen sacrifice.

“Times like this I wish I’d never come out of the forest,” Merlin mutters. Harry ignores this with the ease of long practice. Merlin had said the same thing often back in Camelot.

The dots on the radar screen, which had previously been clustered in a loose circle, begin to separate. One splits off, then another. Harry nods to himself. Standard elimination approach. Harry makes a private bet with himself: the second-to-last dot will be Roxanne Morton. Percival’s niece has emerged as Eggsy’s major competition for the seat, and since Eggsy lacks the insider knowledge that should be his, Harry finds himself in the unusual position of having to worry about his candidate. Roxy might snipe the knighthood yet, and then where will they be? What excuse will Harry use to keep Galahad close while they work to unlock his memories? Is it too much to hope that Eggsy will still want to be near Harry, even without Camelot to bind them? Over the centuries Galahad has sworn his love in as many ways as there are languages on the Earth. Arthur shouldn’t be so insecure.

And yet. Harry shifts uneasily, and Merlin shoots him a quelling look. Merlin had always refuted claims he could read minds, but Harry does his best to put his worries aside for the moment anyway.

The rest of the test plays out exactly as Harry had expected. The candidates are mic’ed, of course, and Harry smiles to himself as Eggsy automatically takes control of the rag-tag group and imposes – or at least attempts to impose – order upon the chaos. Some of the candidates don’t listen, panic, and abandon the group. Knights of Kingsmen operate solo more often than Knights of the Round Table ever did, but Harry had written Kingsman’s charter, and he still values teamwork as much as he did in Camelot: the test is designed so that those who desert disqualify themselves, landing well wide of the target circle and earning an automatic fail.

Eventually only two are left, and Harry wins his private bet with himself; Roxy is indeed the other person still falling with Eggsy. The dots commingle on Harry’s display as Eggsy coaches Roxy through her fear and panic. They manage to get a parachute deployed, some thousands of feet below the _official_ minimum but well above what Harry knows from experience to be the actual cutoff. It makes the landing rough, though, and from the groans and choking sounds one makes when having one’s breath knocked out of one, Harry deduces that they’d landed even rougher than strictly necessary. Well, clinging like limpets _does_ make it hard to tuck and roll. And Eggsy, as soon as he gets his breath back, is swearing up a storm. Merlin has already gone outside, but several of the techs look impressed.

Harry comes out on the patio then, wanting to see Eggsy’s reaction in person. And it’s glorious to watch. Eggsy goes completely off on Merlin. As he swells with the force of his righteous fury, Harry sees for a brief second the knight he’d fallen in love with all those lifetimes ago.

Then Merlin pulls Eggsy’s ripcord. It’s almost comical: Eggsy deflates just as fast as his parachute inflates. Suddenly he’s back to being the boy from the estates whose father had died too young, and Harry feels an entirely different kind of pull towards him. Arthur had become king once because he’d been unwilling to sit by while injustice held sway. It shames him to know that in this country he has made there are still people like Eggsy, whose opportunities are so sharply curtailed by the mere circumstances of his birth.

Merlin, job done, goes past Harry on his way back into the mansion. Eggsy remains where he’d slumped over, tangled up in his parachute. He’s not even trying to escape yet; he’s just staring up at the sky, probably questioning all of his life choices. Harry finds a corner of his mouth quirking up. Before he knows it, he’s walking down the stairs, towards Eggsy.

“Come to laugh at me too?” Eggsy asks, still slumped in defeat.

Harry shakes his head, though Eggsy, from his angle, likely can’t see it. “I thought you might need a hand.”

“I’m going to need a lot more than that, bruv.” Eggsy squints at Harry. “You wouldn’t happen to have a miracle hiding in that jacket pocket, would you?”

“Left it in my other pants,” Harry deadpans. “But I do have…” he makes a show of patting himself down, before extracting the utility knife he always carries and flicking it open. “...the means for extracting you from your current predicament. If you are quite finished wallowing.”

“Wallowing, he calls it,” Eggsy grumbles, but nods at Harry to proceed. “Merlin probably thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Merlin thinks everyone is an idiot,” Harry reminds him. Or tells him, since Galahad doesn’t remember. “There are a few exceptions - other wizards, mostly - but certainly none of we poor Muggles make the list.”

For some reason that makes Eggsy laugh. He probably thinks Harry’s joking. Or it’s because: “ _You’ve_ read Harry Potter? Fuck off. I figured you for someone who thinks Augustine is light bedtime reading.”

Harry stills. Could Galahad be - they’d argued over Augustine, in their quiet moments at Camelot. Back then his writings had been recent, the ink barely dry on the copies of his writings that the merchants had brought from Rome. “Well,” Harry ventures, “he makes some strong points that the six-day creation window as described in Genesis should be considered logical rather than literal - ”

“Oh God, spare me!” Eggsy wails theatrically. “Harry, have mercy. I just fell out of the sky with what I thought was a defective parachute. Don’t make it worse.”

“So philosophy isn’t your thing?” Harry goes back to cutting the strings, concealing his disappointment.

“Well…” Eggsy, finally free, stands. Harry gets to his feet as well. Eggsy stretches, and Harry ogles him shamelessly: all that beautiful muscle pulled taut, until Eggsy relaxes with a sudden _whoof_ of breath. The look he sends Harry is downright flirty. “Depends on the situation, innit? Maybe if we was at a nice restaurant, things would be different.”

Harry blinks. “You enjoy discussing philosophy, but only at nice restaurants,” he says stupidly.

“And only with people I like,” Eggsy agrees.

Harry’s remaining brain cells coalesce frantically. “Since you mentioned this to me, shall I take it that I might fall on that privileged list?”

“I don’t know yet, do I?” Eggsy says reasonably. “I haven’t yet discussed philosophy with you at a nice restaurant.”

“But suppose you don’t like me. Then you wouldn’t enjoy it at all.”

“I’d still enjoy the food, though. And the wine. Since you’d be paying.”

“Oh I would, would I?” Harry is beginning to enjoy this. It’s different – the thrill of the chase – but he’d chased Galahad once successfully, and he’s just egotistical enough to go for it again now that the chance seems to be offering.

“Don’t even try to say you can’t afford it,” Eggsy laughs. “Besides, you’re a gentleman, ain’t you? And I always heard it was a gentleman’s job to pay for dinner.”

“That might limit our choices somewhat,” Harry muses. “Nando’s, I think, is affordable.”

Eggsy gasps theatrically. “Why Harry Hart - ”

“Gentlemen?”

Harry nearly jumps. Eggsy _does_ jump. Merlin crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrow, as much to say, _Some superspy and spy-in-training you two are._

“If you’re both quite done,” Merlin says, “I need to speak with Galahad. Alone.”

Eggsy and Harry both stare at him. Neither act. It takes Harry far too long, ten seconds at least, to realize that the reason Eggsy isn’t moving is that Eggsy thinks Merlin is talking about _Harry_.

“You mean me?” Harry hazards.

“Do you see any other Galahad here?” Eggsy says cheekily. Harry nearly chokes.

“Indeed I do not, Mr. Unwin,” Merlin says, biting off every word. His eyes are boring into Harry’s. Harry frowns, feeling his light mood of a moment before sink. “Agent?” He gestures back towards the manor. “And you, Mr. Unwin, should report back to your dormitory at once. I believe this afternoon’s lesson commences in fifteen minutes.”

“Aye, sir,” Eggsy says, giving Merlin a sharp nod that had doubtless been very proper in the marines. The grin he gives Harry is much less regulation. Eggsy looks like he’s about to say something else, and Harry desperately wants to hear what it is, but the look Merlin gives Eggsy when the latter opens his mouth is positively gimlet. Eggsy chooses the better part of valor and flees at a brisk walk.

Harry watches him go with a wistful sigh. When Eggsy has disappeared back into the mansion, he turns to Merlin. “Well, what is it?” Harry asks, somewhat pettishly. “I think I might have been getting somewhere, before you so rudely interrupted.”

“Let us both pray you weren’t,” Merlin says grimly. “Come on. Inside. We don’t want prying ears for this.”

* * *

_Arthur comes to a halt under the shade of one of the innumerable trees around them. There were forests aplenty around Camelot, but none, he thinks, so dark as this. Even when hunting fiends, he had never felt an atmosphere so oppressive._

_“And to think the sun was shining when we left this morning,” Galahad says wryly._

_“Mayhap it shines yet, but I could nae swear to it.” Arthur’s mother in this lifetime had been a Northumbrian, and the cant of her speech is with Arthur still, though she had died birthing his youngest sibling. Thanks be at least that Arthur – Hamish, she’d called him – was not the eldest son. Dougal had drawn that lot and now manages the farm capably, while Mary tends their aged father. Hamish had been allowed to become a merchant, in which profession he had travelled far and wide. On his most recent visit home – two years gone, now – he had introduced his family to his new apprentice. Galahad had charmed them all. Maisie, the baby of the family and still young enough to moon over a traveler, had cried to see him go. Arthur had felt all the pride of being the chosen one that night, when Galahad had spread his bedroll next to Arthur’s beneath the stars._

_Now Galahad squints up at the thick foliage and shrugs his shoulders. “There haven’t been fiends in the British Isles since we found the Grail, nigh on three hundred years ago,” he says, unwittingly echoing Arthur’s earlier thoughts. “So why…”_

_Arthur looks around him, searching for a source. What he sees makes him blink. “That rock formation,” he says. “I could have sworn we passed it an hour gone.”_

_“The one marking the split in the path?” Galahad follows Arthur’s gaze. A frown mars his features. “Aye, I would have said the same.”_

_“Perhaps it is our imagination,” Arthur suggests._

_“Perhaps.” Galahad sounds unconvinced._

_“Come.” Arthur nudges Galahad and smiles, hoping to see his beloved’s smile in return. “Witness us, two old men with fading memories, staring at rocks instead of journeying on.”_

_“Hah!” Galahad doesn’t smile, but he relaxes, and his frown dissipates. “Speak for yourself, ancient one. I am the veriest youth. Beloved of young maidens, even!”_

_“What? A challenger?” Arthur makes a show of looking around him and drawing his hunting-knife as if it were a sword. “Bring them hence, that I may fight for your affections!”_

_“If there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll do it,” Galahad says firmly. “I’m your knight, aren’t I?” And there, at last, he smiles. “Besides. We must spare your aged bones.”_

_“Faugh!” Arthur throws up his hands, thoroughly bested and glad to be so. “Very well, I demur. Tell me then, fairest of youths, will you take up with young maidens?”_

_Galahad makes a show of considering it. “In truth,” he says, “I think I prefer a man like a fine mead.”_

_“Well-aged?”_

_“Smooth – and rich.”_

_Now it’s Arthur’s turn to laugh. “Wrong lifetime, I’m afraid,” he chuckles. “But perhaps ‘well-to-do’ might be achievable, if the merchanting goes well.”_

_“Then your layabout apprentice had better start pulling his weight.”_

_“I’ve got an idea of how he could start,” Arthur says, leaning forward to be kissed, and for a long moment there is no more conversation._

_At last Galahad pulls back with a sigh and adjusts the pack on his back. They’ve no cart with them, having just sold a wagonload of goods at the last village and the wagon besides. On this leg of their journey they have only themselves and their gold to move. For which Arthur is suddenly glad, all things considering._

_He nods towards the rock formation. “The right path, I think.”_

_They set out again in good spirits. A little while later they pause for a light meal. Shouldering their burdens afterwards, they continue on, but where they should have passed the center of the forest and begun reaching the edges, there is no lessening of the gloom. Only continued forestation, just as thick as it had been before._

_“Think ye we took a wrong turn?” Galahad wonders._

_“We are better woodsmen than that,” Arthur disagrees. “Wait – there, up ahead…” He forges through a copse of trees, then comes to a sickening halt._

_“Arthur, what is – oh.” Galahad stops beside him. Their gazes rest on a single object: the rock formation they had kissed by earlier._

_“We are going in circles,” Arthur says._

_“Not of our own volition,” Galahad says. “We’ve traveled this forest a dozen times. We know its routes well enough, and as you said – we are better woodsmen than that.” Galahad’s frown has returned, deeper than before, and he turns, looking around them. “There’s a tingling at the back of my neck I mislike. I suspect an outside influence.”_

_Arthur suspects the same. “Magic,” he says, giving voice to half their dread, though he holds back the second between his teeth for the time. “Well, Merlin always said that most magic breaks with the dawning.”_

_“Aye,” Galahd agrees. “I suppose we have little choice but to wait.”_

_Arthur nods agreement. They have plenty of provisions and more than enough skill with bow and knife to hunt for more. They can afford to wait, at least for a time._

_“We may as well make camp.” He tries to smile despite his creeping dread. “Why don’t you try to snare a rabbit?”_

_Galahad looks as if he wants to say more, but shrugs at last and agrees. “It’s not as if I won’t be able to find you again,” he says with gallows humor, before vanishing into the forest._

_Laying out the bedrolls takes but a few minutes; gathering wood and starting a fire, a little more. Arthur prepares a pot of grains in anticipation of Galahad’s return. Galahad is by far the better hunter of them both, and Arthur expects him within the hour. But two pass, and then three. The sun in low in the sky when Arthur gathers up his weapons – never far from his hands – and prepares to go after his beloved. Though if whoever has bewitched the forest wishes to separate them –_

_A whistle from the east alerts Arthur, and he turns to see Galahad coming into view. A cry of relief and welcome bursts from his lips. But when Galahad comes closer, Arthur sees the look on his face, and any gladness turns to dust._

_“What is it?” he asks, fearing the answer._

_“No game,” Galahad says slowly. He moves close to the fire and sits down heavily._

_“Well, I’ll give it a try tomorrow, or you will. We’ve plenty for tonight – ”_

_“Arthur, no. I don’t mean that I failed to catch game. I mean that there is no game.” Galahad turns his head and catches Arthur’s gaze, holding it steady. “No tracks. No animal paths. No burrows. This forest is empty of life. And listen.”_

_Arthur listens. He hears the crackling of the fire. He hears the rustling of the underbrush and the chirping of the birds, which same sounds he had been hearing all day, comforting usual sounds of a well-populated forest._

_“I don’t – ” he begins._

_Galahad holds up a hand. “Listen. Listen longer.”_

_Arthur stares at him. He doesn’t understand. But he does as his beloved wishes, and listens longer._

_The fire crackles. The birds chirp. The leaves rustle. The fire crackles. The birds chirp –_

_Understanding is like a thunderclap. Arthur closes his eyes slowly._

_“The birds sing the same song,” Galahad says. “Over and over again, the same song. The leaves rustle in the same pattern. And this fire gives no warmth.”_

_Arthur holds his hands up to the fire. Indeed, now that the night is beginning to grow chill, he can sense it. The pot of grains he had put in the coals is cold to Arthur’s daring touch._

_“Is any of this real?” Arthur whispers, looking around._

_“The hunger in my belly is real,” Galahad says grimly. “The dryness in my throat is real. I drank at a stream earlier. I would have sworn I swallowed water, but my thirst did not abate.”_

_“The water we brought with us is good,” Arthur says. “I drank from it earlier.”_

_“I ate some of our traveling food while I was hunting,” Galahad agrees. “But it will run out. The water will run out. The night will grow cold.”_

_“Our blankets will warm us.”_

_“For a time.”_

_Arthur falls silent. Galahad is right. They travel with enough provisions for a week – two if they are parsimonious. But after that…_

_“We must get out of this forest,” Arthur says with determination._

_They try. God and the Lady know, they try. Galahad climbs the tallest trees they can find, but despite what he sees from its branches, the trees remain as thick and the atmosphere as oppressive in every direction they walk. They follow everything that might be a path or a track, only to have them end in increasingly improbable ways: a waterfall that disappears beneath them into mist, a sheer cliff of rock that cannot be climbed, a bramble bush so thick that it swallows a stick poked into it whole and draws blood from Galahad’s fingers before he lets it go._

_“The only way out is to break whatever spell encircles us,” Galahad says at last._

_“Our track record with that is not so good,” Arthur says, attempting levity. The look Galahad gives him says it doesn’t work. He deflates. “If you have any ideas, I’m open to hearing them.”_

_Galahad shakes his head._

_By mutual, silent agreement, they return to the strange rock formation, which is always an hour’s walk towards what their instincts say is the center of the forest from wherever they may be. Against its limited shelter they again spread their bedrolls; in one of its cracked sides they store the last of their provisions._

_“Light a fire?” Galahad asks, the first words he’s spoken since their return to the rocks. “I know it won’t warm us, but I like to see its light.”_

_“Of course,” Arthur says._

_They sit with their backs against the rock, itself still warm with the heat of the day, and watch the flickering of heatless flames. The sun sets overhead, though they can barely see it. But gloom spreads its tendrils deep in the forest. In the distance, there is the sound of a woman’s mocking laughter. Arthur puts his arm around Galahad’s shoulders, futile defense against an incipient doom._

_“Do you remember the Anarchy?” Galahad asks after a while, in a tone of idle musing._

_“Aye,” Arthur says briefly._

_“Poor Maude.” Galahad shakes his head. “She didn’t deserve that.”_

_“None whom Morgana have killed deserved it.”_

_“I suppose. But she seems unusually tragic, to me. Maude was so worried about little Frederick. She wanted to see him inherit Henry’s throne in the Holy Roman Empire; she didn’t care about the English crown. But Morgana saw her chance…”_

_Morgana had murdered Maude and taken her place, disguising herself with the aid of magic and then invading England, triggering a bloody war. And Galahad, who had then been in service to the false Maude’s second husband, had been one of its first casualties._

_“Why think of this now?” Arthur asks._

_Galahad shrugs. They’re pressed closely enough against the encroaching evening that it jogs Arthur’s arm, too. “Thinking of all the ways Morgana has killed me over the centuries.” He looks around. “This is a new one.”_

_“She’s inventive,” Arthur says bitterly. Thirst will be a new way to die, at least. Assuming exposure doesn’t get them first, but he doesn’t think it will. The nights are cold enough to be unpleasant but not to kill. Their water will give out first._

_“That first Crusade,” Galahad says almost dreamily. “When we got inside the walls and she was waiting there for us – ”_

_“I remember,” Arthur says harshly. She had looked at them and laughed. Arthur had drawn his sword out of sheer instinct, though he’d proven lifetimes before that steel had no effect on her. She had used her powers of illusion on Arthur and Galahad, that time, and Lancelot and Percival, who had been with them. Their own forces had turned on them, suddenly seeing four Saracens in their midst. Spurred by Morgana’s cries, Percival and Galahad had been hacked to pieces on the spot. Arthur and Lancelot had been crucified._

_“It was a beautiful city, though.” Galahad leans his head on Arthur’s shoulder; Arthur puts his arm around him, despair settling into his bones. “We got to see the Holy Land.”_

_Arthur looks down at the golden head resting against him._ How can you be so good? _he wants to cry. A memory that is blood and death and pure, screaming, impotent fury to him – but Galahad remembers the Holy Land, and is glad._

_“Arthur?”_

_“Yes, my beloved?”_

_Galahad raises his head and leans in, close enough to kiss. “I love you. Morgana can never change that.”_

_Arthur closes his eyes against the tears that want to well up. But he kisses Galahad there, beneath the stars they cannot see, and thinks that at least this time they’ll be together at the end._

* * *

“What do you mean, _don’t try to make him remember_?” Harry sputters.

“Exactly what I said,” Merlin says, leaning forward in his chair to emphasize his point. They’re in Harry’s office, their usual location of choice for quiet conversation since Merlin’s domain is so vast and shared with so many. The wing-back chairs have been in the Kingsman mansion since the Depression. Harry had bought them as a set, expecting even then that Galahad would sit in the other one day. Instead it’s Merlin, and he’s telling Harry that he mustn’t try to get his beloved back. Merlin must see the instinctive repudiation in Harry’s face, because he makes a face of his own, one of frustration, and says, “No, listen to me. Harry – this is our chance.”

“Our chance to what?”

“To break the curse. To defeat Morgana once and for all.”

Harry counts to ten in ancient Latin, getting himself under control. “I thought you said that the curse dissolving was bad. That without the curse, when we died next we would die in truth, and there would never be another Camelot.”

“Yes, if it _dissolved_ ,” Merlin said in exasperation. “If you died here, in the world, without the curse to force your reincarnation.”

“Then – ”

“Think back. Think of Camlann. What was supposed to happen?”

Harry has to pause, to rummage around in old memories that he’d laid aside for lack of usefulness, like a winter blanket in a cedar chest. Not forgotten, for one day he would be Arthur again in public as well as private, and he would need them. But put away…

“The Lady was to come,” he says slowly. “I – she was to take us across the river to Avalon. Any who died in the battle she was able to capture, and bring their souls there to live – they live there yet, awaiting the promised time, or so I trust. But those of us who survived Camlann were to travel there in body.”

“But only the pure in heart and soul may enter Avalon,” Merlin says. “When Morgana and Guinevere unleashed their curse, that darkness seeped through ye. Ye could not enter.”

“Nor would death free us from that darkness and allow the Lady to capture our souls, as she did with our brothers who were slain in that final battle,” Arthur remembers. “In death we remained accursed, and were reborn into new mortal lifetimes. Except that now the spell has faded, and if we die, we die in truth.” He stares past Merlin’s shoulder at the portraits that circle the walls. Everyone who has held the office of Galahad before him stares back. None of them are Harry – Harry had been Arthur, both times before. One of them _is_ Galahad. Galahad III, looking just as Eggsy will look if he’s allowed to grow older. There’s a scar on the painting’s cheek and stubble on his chin; his eyes are shadowed, and his posture stiff. It will be another ten years, Harry thinks, before anyone who doesn’t already know the truth will start commenting on the painting’s likeness to young, innocent Eggsy Unwin. Eggsy who is not Galahad, but who could be. Who Harry desperately wants to be. But not, it must be admitted, if it puts his life at risk…

“Ye die in truth because the spell is dissolving but not gone. Its tatters remain, tainting ye with darkness and keeping ye from the Lady’s touch. But its power has faded too far to craft ye new bodies. Ye are in a dangerous limbo. But there is an exit.”

“Break the curse. Merlin, don’t you think we _tried_?” Harry throws up his hands in exasperation. “We sought out every Briton with so much as a whiff of magic in their breath, quested again for the Grail or any other artifact that might give us its blessing – all, all for naught. No mortal could help us; the divine turned their faces from us. You were sleeping, the Lady was in Avalon – ”

“I am here now,” Merlin says sharply. “And I am telling ye that there is a way.”

“What, then? What is this way?” Harry holds his breath.

“It is deceptively simple,” Merlin says. “Kill Morgana.”

Harry stares at him. Then he starts laughing. “I killed her myself, after Camlann,” he chokes out. “’Twas the first thing we tried, Percival and I. It made no difference. She laughed at us. When we pulled our swords from her body, the wounds healed before our eyes. She spread her arms wide and invited us to try as many times as we wished. When at last we could raise our weapons no more, she simply walked away.”

Merlin nods. “Yes. That, too, is in the weave of the spell. No one of Camelot may slay her. And no one _not_ of Camelot may get close enough to try.”

“Despite Kingsman’s best attempts,” Harry says bitterly. “Then – ”

“Eggsy Unwin is not of Camelot.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry begs, bile rising in his throat. “He will remember. He _will_.”

“Pray he does not,” Merlin says. “Because as long as he is _from_ Camelot, but not _of_ it, he is the loophole. He is the one thing the spell cannot predict. Someone whose soul still bears the traces of magic that will let him bypass Morgana’s protections – but on whom the grip of the spell has loosened to the extent to make it all but useless. If the spell is not strong enough to compel him to remember, the spell is not strong enough to turn his weapons to mist. Eggsy can kill Morgana.”

“If,” Harry says in dawning understanding. “If he does not remember.”

“I cannot say whether regaining his memories through our intervention would also seep him in the curse’s darkness,” Merlin says. “What I _can_ say is that we dare not take the chance. I cannot keep Percival and Lancelot trapped between life and death forever… though they are not fading as fast as I had feared…” His gaze turns inward for a moment, abstracted, before he visibly shakes the thought away. “But if nothing else, Harry, _ye_ will eventually die of old age. And then where will we be?”

“Gone,” Harry whispers, shaken. He hadn’t thought it through. He had barely begun to grasp the implications of death on a mission. Merlin had _said_ that Lancelot would not reincarnate. Had said that Percival could not be allowed to die, lest he be lost forever. Harry had grasped that the same danger lay before him. But he had thought in terms of being careful when crossing the street, of taking fewer chances in a gunfight. He had not thought of the simple inevitability of Time.

“Since I first realized this threat, I have been working night and day to find a solution,” Merlin says. “Eggsy Unwin – Galahad who is not – _is_ the solution. He can slay Morgana and break the curse.”

“And Percival and Lancelot will be safe if we do?”

“Their souls will fly directly to Avalon,” Merlin promises. “And when we who remain embodied go to stand on its shores, the Lady will come to guide our flesh.”

“But Eggsy must not remember.” Harry feels sick, twice over: once when he thinks of how he had tempted Galahad with memories of Augustinian debate, and then again when he thinks of what he must do. Galahad has been the light in the darkness of this eternal cycle of death and rebirth. Now Harry must forgo even that comfort.

Then another thought, even worse: “He must not win the knighthood.”

“No.” Merlin says it gently, even compassionately, by his lights, but firmly. “Galahad knows too much of Kingsman. If he were to become a knight, the initiation ritual alone… it’s too dangerous.”

“But,” Harry protests. “How are we to direct him at Morgana, with lethal intent, if he is not to be a knight?”

“I have the beginnings of a plan,” Merlin says. “But ye’re not going to like it.”


	8. Chapter 8

_Summer and the heat of the year comes with unwonted fanfare. It’s the fifth anniversary of Arthur’s unification of Britain, and the King proclaims a festival for the village and all who come to visit, with a day’s tournament at the end – more a spectacle than a true competition, which would require upwards of a week. Arthur, Lancelot says, envisions this more as a way for the knights to show their skills to the common people, so that the people will come to know and trust those on whom they depend for protection. Lancelot is to joust in the third round against Sir Galahad. Percival thus finds himself with double duty, preparing both knights’ equipment and horses, since Sir Galahad still has no squire. A state of affairs he promises to change as soon as Midsummer is upon them._

_“For there are a fine crop of pages who will sit the Vigil,” he says to Percival, where he finds the latter in the armory polishing swords, “and I think either Bors’ nephew or that young former blacksmith’s apprentice would make excellent choices. So while I thank you for all your services, I shall dispense with them before long.”_

_Percival grins back, and dares to presume enough to say, “In that case, my lord, I shall not shorten your stirrups after all on the day of the joust.”_

_Some of the knights might have boxed his ears for that, but Galahad bursts out with laughter. “Lancelot will not need your help to unseat me, lad,” he says, still chuckling. “But your loyalty does you credit.”_

_There is something else that will happen around Midsummer, too: Percival’s birthday. It falls not quite on the holiday, but a few days beforehand – that is to say, right when the preparations for the festival will be at their height; when every servant, stable-boy, page, squire, and even many of the knights will be dashing about from one task to the next, omitting such mortal things as sleep and nourishment in their mania for perfection. Percival therefore expects nothing on his birthday, and is not disappointed when he receives nothing. Except that when he returns to Lancelot’s chambers that night – or perhaps, given that the cock-crow is bare hours hence, he ought to say the following morning – he finds rather more than nothing._

_The candles are flickering in Lancelot’s study when Percival stumbles in, almost too wearied to stand, let alone to make out that Lancelot is sitting in his usual chair. Upright, not asleep. And the door is wide open. Usually Lancelot leaves it ajar, so that his squire may enter and check on Lancelot. Sometimes, when matters are too delicate even for that, the door is closed, and, Percival presumes, locked, though he had never bothered to actually check. But rarely is the door full-open, unless Percival is cleaning the room or some article of furniture needs to be moved to and fro. Percival looks at the open door, and Lancelot sitting awake within, and blinks dumbly at the candle-light. He is too tired and too muddled to make sense of this._

_“Good evening, Percival,” Lancelot says. He holds up a hand. “Acquit me; I know perfectly well that it is far more morning than evening, and that I have, in fact, left your birthday observance shamefully late. You know I assert my master’s privilege rarely, but indulge me in asserting it now: it is evening, it is yesterday, and you, my loyal, hardworking, earnest squire, are become a man.”_

_For someone who is now a man, Percival’s knees are astonishingly weak. He cannot quite tell whether it’s the late/early hour, the volume of labor he has performed since last he had rest, or the way Lancelot’s words of praise make him tremble both within and without. From the first moment he had looked up at Lancelot from an inelegant sprawl on the palace training-grounds, fresh from home in the forest and desperate to find a place, Percival had longed for Lancelot’s favor and praise. And though Lancelot is far from stingy in doling it out, the years that have elapsed since then have not dulled Percival’s thirst._

_“Thank you, my Lord,” Percival says, after he has cleared his embarrassingly thick throat enough to permit speech. “I am honored by your remembrance.”_

_“If so little as my remembrance does you honor, you are about to be utterly bowled over,” Lancelot says with a smile. “I have something for you.”_

_“For me?” Percival’s throat closes again, but when Lancelot beckons, Percival’s feet move him forward without his needing to direct them to comply. He lingers briefly at the door of the study, just to be certain. Lancelot beckons him again. So Percival enters, only to stop again in shock when he sees what Lancelot is holding. “It – it cannot be!”_

_“No?” Lancelot looks down at the scabbard in his hands, then back up, that beloved smile upon his face. “Is it an illusion, then? One of Merlin’s works? Nay, acquit me – that would be a cruel jest to play on one who has never shown me anything but his best. It is real, and it is yours.”_

_Percival reaches out with a trembling hand. “But – your sword,” he says stupidly. “It is_ yours _!”_

 _“It_ was _mine,” Lancelot acknowledges. “And before that, it was my father’s, who bore it honorably in Uther Pendragon’s army. When he died it came to me.”_

_“Then you must keep it,” Percival says wildly. “Your own son will wish to have it.”_

_Lancelot shakes his head slowly. “I am not the marrying type,” he says. The words are simple, but the meaning reverberates. “You have lived enough at court to know that some are such. When one can be like Arthur, it is best, but we are not all so made. I have a younger brother who is happily settled; he and his wife already care for the land while I am here, and his son shall inherit. I know the youth, and he will do well. But he will also have no need for a sword. You will. And I tell you truly, Percival, that I am as proud of you as I could ever be of my own flesh and blood.”_

_Percival lets his hand lay on the sword. He is trembling, and not just from the praise, nor from the pride of would-be ownership. Lancelot’s words echo in his ears:_ I am not the marrying type _. Yes, Percival knows what that means. He knows that for some men, the roles of_ eromenos _and_ wife _become entwined, and the man so made desires not to separate them. That man will never beget heirs, but all of the famous heroes of antiquity have been such, and that, Percival has always thought, is an immortality more worth having than children. Percival has always known that he himself would choose to live in that way. And perhaps it is that he_ is _a man now, or perhaps it is Lancelot confessing to him that he would be another such. Or perhaps it is only the clarity that the gift of the sword brings. But Percival sees his desire made flesh before him, and he lets go of the sword, though not without regret._

_“What is it?” Lancelot asks, surprised and, Percival thinks, beginning to be hurt. “Does it not appeal?”_

_“Very much,” Percival tells him truthfully. “But not – not as a gift from a father to a son. My Lord – Lancelot,” he corrects himself, for this is no matter to be spoken of between a knight and a squire. This is a matter for men. “I crave your respect, and I see that you mean to bestow it. For that I thank you. But what I want from you transcends that. If you – if you do not – ” he stumbles to a halt. Lancelot is staring at him wide-eyed, and Percival doesn’t know what that might mean._

_There is silence for a long moment, save the cackle of candles burning._

_“My squire,” Lancelot says at length, and Percival must fight not to crumple, for this is not an auspicious beginning. “I am certain that you are quite in earnest, and I would not shame you by implying otherwise. But you know that the way one feels as a youth is not always the way one feels as a man. Already, I am sure, you find that favorite pastimes from your childhood have fallen by the wayside as you grow and open yourself to new… possibilities. It often happens thus when one begins to explore – ahem – that is to say – ”_

_“You dance about the point like a housewife haggling at the market,” Percival says, sick with disappointment and furious at being condescended to. He forgets that Lancelot is his titular master, that Lancelot could have him thrown out of his chambers, out of the castle, out of Camelot entirely, by merely speaking to the King. The King would choose any of his knights over a mere squire, and how much more Lancelot, who had followed him for so long, who had been so instrumental in uniting Britain and affirming Arthur on the throne, and who had brought to court his cousin, who now holds the warrior’s place in Arthur’s heart? But none of that matters now. Percival looks at the man before him and he doesn’t see the venerated knight. He sees the author of his rejection. “If you do not want me, simply say so. There is no need for platitudes. I will be – ”_ all right _catches in Percival’s throat, and he can’t force it out. He scrambles frantically for another word. There is no need. Lancelot is rising._

_“This is not uncommon,” he says, and at least he is kind about it. “A youth from the countryside comes to the King’s court, is taken under the wing of a more experienced man – nothing could be more natural than that you fancy more than you feel. It will pass, Percival. You shall see. Now, we will speak of this no further. One day you will thank me.” He sets the sword down on his desk. “The festival begins soon. Your part is archery, so we will revisit the matter of the sword after. I think you will find your feelings on the matter quite altered.” Lancelot passes by Percival, and there is no pat on the shoulder, no ruffle of his hair. “You had best retire. You may consider that an order, if it salves your conscience. Go to sleep. And dream of happier things.”_

_Percival watches him go. He stands there for a time, until the mere act of standing becomes foolish: Lancelot has gone into his sleeping chamber and closed the door, and will not reopen it, Percival knows. So Percival blows out the candles in Lancelot’s study and goes to the small closet off the main room that houses his own modest cot. He stretches out upon it and tries to follow Lancelot’s order._

_He cannot sleep. Or perhaps he can: at one point he must dream, for he thinks he feels the press of Lancelot’s lips to his forehead, hears a murmured benediction. His eyes are heavy, so he closes them. An indeterminate time later he opens them again. The red coals of the hearth glow with their early-morning heat, and the dim light of dawn creeps across the floor._

_And Percival has, indeed, dreamt of a happier thing._ If you do not want me, simply say so _, Percival had cried. But think as he might on Lancelot’s response – on all of Lancelot’s words to him – Percival can find no hint of repudiation._

_The cock crows. Percival rises and lights the candles._

* * *

“Airplanes,” a familiar voice is muttering in disgust. _“Airplanes_. If you had been meant to fly, you would have been given the magic to do it with. Faugh! To be hurtled through the sky by mechanical means, with no wings of your own to depend on – worse, to _willingly_ _jump out_ , with nothing more than twine and canvas between you and a grave – ”

Lancelot, more quick on the uptake, laughs gently. _The false parachute trial, then, dear Roxanne?_

“Say rather false confidence,” she snaps back, though she still keeps her tone moderate and quiet, so as to remain unnoticed. A glamour likely helps with that. And though Percival cannot open his eyes, there is a quality in the air against his skin that suggests medical is largely empty – the middle of the night. “How can you have such faith in your technology?”

_The same way you can have faith in your magic. It is part of us; it has been tried and tested and proven its value. It can go wrong, but so can your spells, can they not?_

“ _My_ spells – ” the Lady-as-Roxy closes her mouth with an audible _click_ , and the feel of her magic pouring over Percival’s body grows stronger.

 _I have a question,_ Percival says tentatively, when it seems that she will say nothing farther on the topic of parachutes and spells.

“You are wondering how it is that I come to be among you and wear the seeming of your niece,” the Lady says shrewdly.

 _Yes,_ Percival admits. _Were you always she? When I told you bedtime stories on my knee…_

“Yes and no,” the Lady says. She sounds abstracted, likely focusing more on her magic than the story she tells. “In order to cram myself into this mortal shell, compromises had to be made. Memory and magic couldn’t fit in the body of a child. And until I was needed, it was safer for me to be hidden, even from myself.”

 _But there was never a Roxy._ Sadness laps at Percival; he had been fond of his niece, against his own wiser inclination, truth be told, for he had learned early on that attachments beyond the Round Table were doomed to heartbreak.

“I was just as real when you were reading me _Paddington Bear_ as I am now,” Roxy says gently. “I was _less_ then, true. But is that not the way of all children? They grow, and change, almost beyond recognition. They go places you have never traveled and learn things you never knew. Your niece’s experience of growing up included gaining memories and power that she would never have guessed at as a child. Well, was it not the same for you, Sir Knight?”

 _She has you there,_ Lancelot says, amused.

Percival would flush if he had the capillaries to do it with. That’s a latent body-memory; as a youth, as a page and then a squire in Camelot, he had had skin so fair it reflected in the sunlight, and blushed at the flicker of an eyelash. He’s grown less fair over the centuries, but the self-image remains: he is someone who flushes easily, with embarrassment and anger and, memorably, lust.

 _But why?_ Lancelot continues, pursuing his own train of thought. _What caused you to adopt mortality in the first place?_

“I Saw that I would be needed,” the Lady says. “This is the time when the weave of fate draws tight around those trapped in its web. Morgana’s curse is fading but not gone. She knows it; she is furious, and she will seek to finish through force what her magic had started. Galahad is present in body but not in soul, the perfect weapon to strike at her heart. And for the first time in centuries, when I stood on the shores of Avalon, I saw Britain across the lake instead of only mist.”

_The time, the time… Lady, can it be?_

“No.” There’s a faint wave of displacement in the air around them; Percival, unbidden, thinks of Roxy shaking her head decisively, her ponytail slashing the air. “Camelot will sleep a long time still. If these events go poorly, it may sleep forever.”

Dread shivers down Percival’s spine. They have always clung to faith in the Time of prophecy, when Arthur would reveal himself to Britain and build Camelot again. At that time Morgana’s spell would be ended, of its own volition, and they would have their chance to defeat her. To hear that that second Camelot might never come – that they might simply die here, unremarked, and pass into legend to be forgotten –

“Despair not,” the Lady scolds. “Morgana thinks she has won, but she doesn’t know that I am come. With me on the board she will find victory impossible to grasp.”

Despite himself Percival laughs. _Mortality has not given you modesty._

“Modesty is nothing more than an accurate estimation of one’s own abilities. Which I have.”

 _That_ sounds so much like Roxy that Percival laughs again. _How could I ever doubt you?_

“Your compatriots have little difficulty.” But Roxy sounds amused. “I shall enjoy rubbing Merlin’s nose in this after we are all safe in Avalon. Right under his nose and he cannot place me… nor does he attend when I speak, and he ought. But I think I have at last started him on the right track. He has realized that Galahad is the key.”

 _You said that before,_ Lancelot says. _That he is the perfect weapon to strike at Morgana._

“He lives, but he does not remember. In this state he and he alone may slay her and end the spell.”

Lancelot is silent, musing over this, making connections, but to Percival reaction is swift and immediate. _Poor Arthur._

“Yes,” the Lady acknowledges. “It will be difficult for him. But the trial could come to no one else save he who was and would be King.”

Lancelot has mused, it seems, to some purpose, for he says, in a tone of understanding, _You will defeat him for the knighthood._

“He must not have it. He would remember.”

Again Percival says: _Poor Arthur_.

“After this is done you may all have rest.” The feeling of magic flowing over Percival’s skin vanishes. There is a faint shuffle as Roxy rises to her feet. “ _You_ shall have rest now. Even speaking with me like this is an exertion you can ill afford.”

 _Don’t begrudge us this,_ Lancelot begs. _We long to know what is passing with our brothers._

“You must rest,” the Lady repeats, but there is compassion in her tone. “I will return tonight.”

 _Thank you,_ Lancelot whispers, as the sense of her presence vanishes and they sink back into the blackness.

* * *

_The tournament goes off splendidly, though Percival’s most enduring memories of it are running back and forth between the castle and the village multiple times a day, sweating under the hot sun, burdened by whatever load he is hauling. But he acquits himself well enough in the squires’ archery competition; he doesn’t win, but he hadn’t expected to. Lamorak’s skill with the bow is very nearly supernatural. Instead Percival fights Gawain to a dead heat for second, and they accept the runner-up’s bouquet together with wide smiles and good grace. Then it’s back to the armory for them both, at a dead run, to haul out the blades for the knights’ sword-fighting exposition._

_The jousting event, the only true competitive event for the knights, takes place on the final day. Lancelot and Galahad throw lots, by which it is decided that Percival will prepare Galahad first, then to Lancelot. Percival will attend Lancelot during the event proper, of course. Galahad will be left to the support of a big-eared young page on the cusp of his Vigil. If the youth does well, there is every reason for him to expect to be selected as Galahad’s squire, should his Vigil be successful; Percival would have thought that this would give the young page confidence, but it only seems to make him more nervous._

_It matters not. Very little of the festival matters to Percival. All around him are people aflame with excitement, participants and viewers alike, but Percival is hardly even enthused when Lancelot unhorses Galahad with a magnificent catch-and-drop under his right leg. He’s glad for Lancelot, of course, but Lancelot doesn’t even look Percival’s way as he tosses his horse’s reins to his squire and goes to kneel before the King to be proclaimed the winner._

_It only solidifies Percival’s determination._

_Once the festival is over, the next big event in Camelot life is the Squires’ Vigil. The big-eared young page – Caradoc, he is called – passes and is duly claimed by Galahad, relieving Percival of his extra duties. A handful of others are also accepted. There is talk among the knights about moving the traditional date of the Vigil to winter, so that it can coincide with the Knight’s Trial at Longnight; this would allow new knights to claim squires right away, and those whose squires have attained knighthood could acquire replacements without having to wait half a year. Arthur promises to think on it, but without much enthusiasm. Galahad makes a face. Percival thinks that this tradition is unlikely to change._

_It’s another holiday, not Longnight, that is on Percival’s mind. He’s only been a squire for a single year, and a man not even so long, so thoughts of the Knight’s Trial are premature. Percival has his eye on a different prize. When the summer heat begins to give way to the cool evenings of autumn, when the hay ripens in the fields and the winter squash are planted, comes the harvest festival of Lughnasadh. And though Britain under Arthur is a Christian nation, their king has seen no reason why the beloved traditions of the old land should not be allowed to endure. There is room for all in Christ. So they will light the bonfires, as their mothers and mothers’ mothers have done for untold centuries before them. They will drink young wines and meads from the season just passing and eat their fill of late-summer fruits. There will be music, and dancing. And when the sun sets, there will be another kind of revelry._

_“Who is it?” the irascible voice of Arthur’s court wizard snaps, when Percival dares knock at Merlin’s door._

_“It is Percival, squire to Lancelot,” Percival answers properly. “I would make a request of you.”_

_There’s a long silence, and Percival fears he will be sent away. But wizards are notoriously curious, even more so than cats, and at length Merlin says, “Then enter.”_

_Percival does so, and wonders once again if he might be half-wizard himself, with the way he cranes his neck to goggle at the wonders crowding every shelf and corner of Merlin’s chambers. Richly bound books are stacked atop each other or left carelessly open, revealing illustrations made with no earthly dye. Precious gems fill a goblet of exquisite crystal, next to a golden plate festooned with crumbs from a heel of bread. Feathers from a bird so brightly-colored they would put an ordinary English peahen to shame sit side-by-side with a grinning skull that can only be human. Percival had already known he had no wish to make an enemy of Merlin, but he renews his resolve with new fervor at this sight._

_“Ye gawk as much as my last apprentice,” Merlin observes caustically from his seat at a desk littered with papers. Percival starts guiltily at this accusation. Then he recalls his own thoughts, that he might be half-wizard for all his curiosity, and eyes Merlin with new wariness and respect. Can the wizard read minds?_

_“No, I can’t read minds,” Merlin says, now sounding amused._

_“That – but you just – ” Percival hears himself gibbering and manages at least to close his mouth. No one was ever made a fool by silence, his mother had always taught him, but if the wizard knows his thoughts then even silence might not be safe…_

_Merlin actually laughs, a rusty but somehow homely sound. “As long as the faces of youths reveal their thoughts so plainly, what need have I to read minds?”_

_“I am a man,” Percival says, gathering his tattered dignity around himself. “Or else I would not have this request to make.”_

_“Oh?” Merlin raises an eyebrow. “Ye intrigue me. What is this request that only a man can make?”_

_“It is for Lughnasadh.”_

_“For the night of Lughnasadh, I think,” Merlin says shrewdly. “One need not be a man to sit by the bonfires, nor to tell the stories and sing the songs.”_

_“For the night,” Percival agrees. “Before I was a youth, and I went to sleep when the youths slept. But the adults do not sleep.”_

_“Faith, young squire, I know full well what transpires on Calan Awst after the children are abed,” Merlin says. He uses the old name for the festival, the one that only the oldest ballads remembered, that even the old men of Percival’s village had not said. It makes Percival tremble, remembering how ancient Merlin truly is. But the wizard again sounds amused, and continues speaking. “So, now you will experience this for the first time. But if ye have come to me for advice – ”_

_“Not advice,” Percival says._

_“Good; that’s yer knight’s job.”_

_“He has done it well.” Though not without visible reluctance. Percival had not brought up again the matter that had last been discussed on the morning after his age-day, when Lancelot had offered Percival the sword of his fathers and Percival had known and confessed his true desires. Lancelot had not spoken of it, either, but the conversation of Lughnasadh had been perilously close to that topic. After the youths are abed, there is a night of revelry – of drinking, yes, but also revelry of the flesh. Lancelot had averted his eyes and spoken in stilted terms of what Percival might expect._

_On Lughnasadh people of all walks mingle together, the castle-folk with the villagers, the servants with the masters. In that respect it is not unlike the week following Longnight; and, like the topsy-turvy days of that intercalary holiday, what happens on Lughnasadh carries no freight on the mornings that follow. The king himself might lay with the lowliest pig-boy in the village, but the pig-boy would have no more claim on the king the next day than as any other villager. On Lughnasadh all are equal; there are no vows of chastity, no bonds to be broken. And to reinforce this, it is customary for each adult who wishes to join in to don a mask or some other modest disguise._

_The purpose, Lancelot had explained, is not to achieve true concealment. Though some choose to attempt it, most merely wrap a scarf around their eyes, or wear a hood and cloak. The purpose is a reminder that what passes on Lughnasadh night vanishes with the dawn. The veneer of anonymity serves as a veil over the night’s events, allowing them to be put aside when the night is through._

_Lancelot had not said aloud that, no matter how hard Percival might work on some such concealment, Lancelot would make it his business to know how Percival would be adorned, and avoid him thereby. Percival had not needed him to say it aloud to know it be true. So, rather than labor over thread and needle for little results, Percival has come here._

_“I do not seek advice,” Percival repeats to the wizard. “I seek an illusion.”_


	9. Chapter 9

Merlin is right. Harry doesn’t like his idea.

Harry demands, and receives, a full week to invent a better plan. Still thinking, Harry turns up at the mansion one morning after combat training and loiters around until Eggsy stumbles out of the showers. Eggsy has got the beginnings of a black eye and he’s moving like someone got a good shot in on his ribs. Bors _does_ tend to let the candidates go a little too far when practicing sparring, but after all, their enemies would do worse to them, if given the chance. Arthur has chastised him, but Bors makes it a habit never to take any notice of Chester King. Harry approves.

And Eggsy, ribs or no ribs, is the epitome of beauty and grace. Harry can’t suppress the fond smile. He controls it as sternly as he can, but he’s fairly sure it’s still lurking around the corners of his mouth when Eggsy notices him. Especially given the way the lad brightens like someone’s just turned on a lightbulb inside his skin. Bad form, that. If the baddies of the world can see someone’s important to you, you’ve as good as painted a target on their back.

“Get dressed,” Harry says, demonstrating the proper decorum. “You’re coming with me.”

Eggsy nods and vanishes into the candidates’ dorms. Harry frowns after him. First Eggsy lets his affection for Harry be seen, and then he goes and obeys an order without question. Supposing Harry had been a double agent? Supposing this had been a test of Eggsy’s ability to stick to the schedule – which, Harry knows perfectly well, has Eggsy down for infiltration training in the next block? Merlin won’t mark Eggsy off for absence, of course, has probably already filed this as an approved field excursion for same, but Eggsy should ask. He shouldn’t do anything just because Harry has asked him to. Galahad certainly never had.

_You can’t have it both ways,_ Harry reminds himself. Eggsy _isn’t_ Galahad. That’s the entire point. Wishing for him to behave like Galahad is counterproductive.

“Ready,” Eggsy says, appearing from the dorm again dressed in Kingsman-issue civvies. He falls into step beside Harry as Harry strides off, silent and obedient. Galahad would have given him a cheeky smile and peppered him with a thousand questions that would have been indistinguishable from flirting. Harry misses his beloved with a fierceness that stings, and is not at all helped by the fact that said beloved is theoretically right by his side.

To distract himself, Harry keeps firm hold of the keys to the Kingsman vehicle despite Eggsy’s longing looks, wistful sighs, and not-at-all-subtle comments about the advantages of being driven around by an eager young man, a chauffeur, you know, like someone of Harry’s rank deserves. Harry ignores them all, though as the drive progresses  his mood lifts and he even finds himself responding to Eggsy’s overtures with half-smiles and chuckles disguised as coughs. Eggsy sees this and responds with increasingly silly suggestions – he could wear a little hat and uniform; he could pour champagne with one hand while driving with the other; he could address Harry as “your Lordship”. That one gets a full laugh out of Harry, and Harry finally gives up being tetchy as pointless. Memories or no memories, Eggsy retains the gift of making Harry forget his cares.

“So, if your Lordship pleases – oh!” Eggsy abandons his increasingly elaborate fantasy to stare out the window in a blatant lack of good manners that Harry should not find as charming as he does. “Wait, Kingsman Tailors? If we were coming here, then why’d we drive all the way from the mansion? The underground train would take us right here, yeah?”

“If we were traveling on official Kingsman business, we would indeed have taken the train,” Harry says. “But today, we are here as customers. You, my boy, need a suit.”

“A suit?” Eggsy looks delighted, as Harry had hoped he would. But then, unexpectedly, Eggsy’s face crumples. “Hang about – it’s not that I wouldn’t love a suit, you know I would, but isn’t it kind of tempting fate? What I mean is…” Eggsy trails off miserably. “I’m making a right mess of this, ain’t I? Harry, this opportunity means everything to me. I want a suit that I’ve _earned_.”

Harry finishes pulling into the reserved parking spaces around the side of the shop and lets the car idle, resting his hands loosely on the wheel. “I admit I wasn’t expecting this reaction,” he says, playing for time while his mind spins. “I… well, there are no guarantees in this business. You’re displaying admirable skill, you’re dedicated, your desire for this position outpaces your next two competitors together. But anything can happen. If things should go poorly, I wanted you to have something. As a token of my esteem.”

Incongruously, Eggsy bursts into tears.

Harry freezes. He has no idea how to handle this. Or, worse, he has several ideas of how to handle this, but they’re all based on _Arthur_ and _Galahad_. _Harry_ has no idea how to help _Eggsy_. Eggsy would probably be thrilled beyond measure if Harry took him into his arms – the boy’s torch is even more pathetically obvious than the one Percival had spent years carrying for Lancelot, once upon a time in Camelot – but Harry is held back by the thought of Morgana, of the curse, of finally breaking it. Of Lancelot and Percival, hanging between life and death and depending on their king to see them through the crisis. So Harry sits there in the driver’s seat like the world’s biggest emotionally repressed idiot, while the love of his several lifetimes raids the glovebox for tissues and comes up with only a travel-size bottle of whisky. Because Kingsman.

That lack, at least, Harry can help with. He fishes the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and offers it to Eggsy, along with an inarticulate murmur of sympathy. Eggsy clutches at the handkerchief the way he’d clutch at Harry if he were allowed, and blows his nose noisily.

“Better?” Harry asks when Eggsy seems to have calmed down somewhat. It’s a wholly inadequate question, but it’s what Harry has to offer.

Eggsy manages a nod. “Sorry. I just – sorry. I guess you know I, uh, well…”

“Didn’t get a lot of respect growing up?” Harry suggests. For both of their sakes, he leaves Eggsy’s obvious, raging praise kink unmentioned.

“Yeah,” Eggsy says, tacitly agreeing to go along with Harry’s polite framing of the situation. “This whole situation is kind of new to me.”

“I must admit, it’s rather new to me as well,” Harry says with more truth than Eggsy can currently know.

Eggsy glances at Harry out of the corner of his eyes, clearly wondering about the meaning of that statement. Harry has obviously sponsored Kingsman candidates before. Eggsy probably doesn’t know that Lee had been Harry’s proposal, but sheer math makes it rather plain that there must have been _someone_ … But Eggsy doesn’t ask, and Harry takes the moment to turn off the car with an air of finality.

“Come inside,” Harry says, asking, this time, instead of ordering. “Let me show you the other side of the business.”

* * *

“Good morning, sirs,” Andrew says from behind the desk as they enter. “Mr. Hart, always good to see you. I don’t believe we have anything on order for you just now.”

Andrew’s impartiality is studied and perfect at all times, but the way he subtly tips his head towards Fitting Room One is signal enough that this isn’t merely Andrew’s usual caution at work: there are strangers in the shop. So Harry merely shakes his head. “My closet is full to bursting, thank you, Andrew. I was thinking of something for the young gentleman.” He puts a hand on Eggsy’s back, drawing Eggsy’s attention away from the riot of ties. Just now the ties are merely a perfect rainbow fan, but in times of danger their patterns might convey urgent messages – stay away, regroup at one of several designated sites, resupply and attack. Kingsman has never been shy about adopting new technology, but sometimes the old ways are still best.

Andrew nods understanding. “I’m afraid Fitting Room One is occupied at the moment, but Fitting Rooms Two and Three are available. If the young gentleman would care to wait, I should be available in perhaps half an hour.”

“No need to rush the other client,” Harry says. “I’ll handle the measurements while you finish up with them, and then we can discuss fabrics and cuts at our leisure.”

“Very good, sir,” Andrew says. “Which room will you have?”

“Three, I think.” Fitting room two is for ordinary people; one does not lose one’s bespoke virginity in fitting room two. Speaking of which… Harry tips Andrew a wink and escorts Eggsy in the proper direction. “See that we’re not disturbed, won’t you?”

Andrew’s smile is perfectly professional. “Certainly, Mr. Hart,” he agrees.

The door closes behind them with a weighty snick. Eggsy looks at it, then at Harry, and raises an eyebrow. “Soundproof?”

“Soundproof, bulletproof, blastproof – and equipped with the latest in personal reflection gear.” Harry gestures.

Eggsy laughs. “A mirror?”

“The better to see the cut of your coat in.” Harry goes over to the wall and takes down the measuring tape.

“You’re really going to measure me?” Uncertainty has crept back into Eggsy’s voice and bearing. “I know you said, but – I dunno, I thought maybe this were gonna be some secret armory or something.”

“Oh, it is that as well,” Harry assures him, and tugs on the hook the measuring tape had been hung on.

“Whoa,” Eggsy breathes, practically breathless with excitement as he watches the room’s furnishings slide away and the walls turn to reveal row after row of equipment. “Harry, mate, that is fucking _aces_.”

“Glad you approve,” Harry says, pleased. The trope is a common one in spy flicks, but making it happen in reality – with a level of security Kingsman would approve – had been trickier than it had seemed. It had been a vanity project for Harry, pure and simple. Something to pass the years in between saving the world and daydreaming about Galahad’s return. He has to admit, he’s gratified by the reaction.

“I want to touch _everything,_ ” Eggsy says gleefully. He moves towards the nearest case, lined with grenades masquerading as cigarette lighters. “Here, what does this do?”

“Oh no.” Harry throws out an arm, stopping Eggsy in his tracks. “I’m afraid it won’t be as easy as that.”

Eggsy looks at him in surprise. Harry hefts the measuring tape and lets his grin stretch wider. “These items are for Kingsman agents only. To let you touch any of them would be a gross dereliction of my duty. _You_ are here for a suit and a suit only.”

“But then why – why – ” Eggsy’s head swings from side to side, looking at everything. “Why show me this?”

Harry guides Eggsy to the exact center of the room, nudges him into position, and leans close. “I said I couldn’t let you _touch_ them.” He unrolls the measuring tape with a satisfying _snap_ and lays it across Eggsy’s shoulders. “Move nothing but your eyes. Look at the leftmost display case. Good. Those are signet rings…”

* * *

By the time they’ve reached the grenades masquerading as cigarette lighters, Harry is hard as iron and seriously questioning whether breaking the curse is worthwhile. If it had just been a question of returning to their usual cycle of death and rebirth he might even have given in to temptation. Unfortunately, the memory of Merlin saying _the curse is breaking down_ is enough to make Harry keep it in his pants, no matter how much his dick strains to escape that prison.

Eggsy is in even worse – or better – shape. He’s trembling like a leaf every time Harry touches him, swaying in a nonexistent breeze. While Harry’s trousers’ careful tailoring conceals his own erection, Eggsy’s clothing is not nearly so forgiving. Harry’s mouth is watering at the desire to push Eggsy over that bench, yank down those awful denims, and get his mouth on Eggsy. Eggsy has abandoned the weaponry to follow Harry’s every move with eyes that make no secret of what he’s hoping will come next. Knowing Eggsy wants Harry as much as Galahad had wanted Arthur is a torture in and of itself. It soothes Arthur’s perpetual anxiety, but self-denial when confronted with his beloved is not an art Arthur has had to practice at any time in the past fourteen hundred years.

The sound of a buzzer provides a welcome distraction. Harry straightens from where he’d been measuring Eggsy’s inseam and glances towards the door.

The buzzer could, if taken at face value, simply mean that Kingsman Tailors’ other client is concluding their business, and Andrew will soon be available to tend to their sartorial needs. The buzzer could _also_ mean that Kingsman’s front-of-house man thinks, in his vast and not-to-be-asked-about experience, that there is something about this client that merits further attention. And that Harry should straighten up, set the measuring tape aside, and flick on the viewscreen hidden within the mirror. Which is what Harry does.

“Harry?” Eggsy is facing away from the mirror, and he’s holding fast even now to Harry’s injunction that he move nothing but his eyes. This means that he can’t see what Harry’s doing. There’s a faint tremble in his frame, as if he wants to turn but has willed himself to stillness. Harry’s cock twitches.

And now is _so_ not the time. “Yes, turn around,” Harry says. He fiddles with the settings. The viewscreen has come up with the feed to the hidden camera in Fitting Room One, but all it’s showing Harry is a selection of ladies’ pantsuits and a door swinging shut. He changes to the cameras located in the main shop and freezes in place.

_“Yes, madam, certainly,_ ” Andrew is saying to a dark-haired lady standing before the counter. She’s visible only in profile, but Harry doesn’t need a facial view. He knows his Nemesis too well.

“What is it?” Eggsy comes up behind him and squints at the woman. “Who’s she?”

Harry fights the irrational urge to clap a hand over Eggsy’s mouth and hiss at him to _shut up_. The door is soundproof, but what good might that do against magic? Back when Merlin had first awoken, they’d talked about having him place barrier spells around Kingsman properties in addition to more traditional security measures. Harry had decided against it, for the very simple reason that if Morgana were ever to get near them, she’d know his magical signature at once. Obscurity is a better prayer. Harry knows intellectually that that had been the right choice. Knows that if Merlin had bespelled the door between he and Morgana, Morgana would already know Harry is here…

_She must know the spell is breaking down,_ Merlin had said. _In a way, this is her chance… she wasn’t able to kill you for once and all before; your destiny was too powerful to overcome. But now matters are altered…_

Harry stares at Morgana through the electronic eye of a camera and hardly dares to breathe. _Does she know we’re here?_ Morgana had always been fond of rich clothing, fine tailoring. And Kingsman, in this arena as in every other, is the best. If Morgana is in England – and they all orbit their mother country as the planets orbit the sun – then there is nothing wonderful in her coming to Kingsman Tailors to select a new pantsuit. The wonder is only that Morgana had never done so before. That Harry, curse him for a fool, had never thought to worry about this before…

“Harry?” Eggsy asks timidly. He sounds as if he’s been repeating himself.

What if Morgana has been coming here for years? If none of the four knights had been at the shop, would they ever have _known_?

Morgana signs a slip Andrew hands to her, accepts the pink copy beneath, and turns towards the exit. Harry tenses further. If she chooses this moment to spin and drive through the fitting room door, he doesn’t think even the blast proofing will stop her. He’s already making plans. He’ll throw Eggsy under the far bench, for what protection it might offer. The rocket launcher on the top left wall might slow Morgana for a moment, and if Harry can get her to throw a big enough spell in self-defense, Merlin will sense it even from the mansion and come at once…

Morgana never turns. Never glances at the camera. Never breaks her stride, even when she tucks the pink receipt into her tiny reticule. Three tense heartbeats and she’s through the door, striding off into London foot traffic without a passing glance. Harry exhales, fighting to control his blood pressure.

“So I’m guessing that’s your crazy ex-girlfriend?” Eggsy says. “She’s well fit, but scary-looking, somehow. I don’t think I’d want to get close, all things considered.”

Harry closes his eyes and slumps against the mirror-viewer. _You have no idea,_ he thinks.

Morgana is here. In London. She has visited Kingsman Tailors. On the one hand, this is good: it means they have a starting point, and may track her whereabouts. When they loose Galahad upon her, he will be able to go directly at his foe.

On the other hand… Morgana is here. In London. She has visited Kingsman. If she knows that it’s merely a front, if she tracks them back to the mansion, she can destroy them, once and for all.

At Harry’s side, Eggsy rambles on about a crazy ex-girlfriend _he’d_ once had. It’s just noise; Eggsy doesn’t like silence. Fears it, even. Something else to work on for his interrogation training.

Morgana won’t interrogate him. She hadn’t interrogated Lancelot or Percival. She knows everything she needs to know. If Morgana captures Galahad, she will simply blow his brains out.

_We have to finish this,_ Harry thinks. _This cycle must end. Now that the spell is breaking down, now that there’s a way out – if we don’t take it, Morgana will. There’s no alternative._

And if lying to Eggsy about who really killed his father is what will point his sword and his wrath at Morgana, then despicable and dishonorable or not, that’s what Harry’s going to do.


	10. Chapter 10

_Merlin doesn’t give Percival his wish merely for the asking, of course. No self-respecting wizard would or could. He requires a payment, and since Percival has no coin – nor would Merlin have any need of coin – he charges Percival in labor. Every day for a week Percival reports to Merlin’s chambers at the appointed time and is set to perform some task. It doesn’t take Percival long to conclude that these tasks are less payment and more a trial in their own right._

_“Aye, and well ye should be glad of it,” Merlin says, unruffled, when Percival charges him with it. “Ye wouldn’t like it if I handed out potent magic to every beardless youth who came knocking at my door for it, would ye? The King certainly wouldn’t.”_

_“I am a man,” Percival says, stiff with wounded dignity._

_“Child, I was full-grown before your grandparents were whelped,” Merlin says with tolerant disdain. “Now shut yer mouth and grind those herbs, and mind ye grind them fine.”_

_The task is long and repetitive, and tests – so Percival thinks – discipline and self-control. Fortunately, the life of a page and then a squire have been excellent at instilling those very virtues. He grinds away, and at the end of several hours produces such a pile of fine-ground powder as to draw a word of praise from Merlin._

_“Shall I return tomorrow, sir?” Percival asks._

_“No need. I’m satisfied. Come back on Lughnasagh. I’ll have ready what ye seek.”_

_Percival bows low in gratitude. “Thank you!”_

_“None of that.” Merlin waves him away. “Ye must have duties. Get.”_

Never second-guess a wizard, _his ma had always said. Percival gets. But there’s a grin on his face that doesn’t fade, even when Lamorak teases him over how much he must love the horses, to be so glad to be currying them that night. The way Lamorak leers makes it clear he means ‘love’ in no Platonic sense, but while Percival would normally duck him in the trough for that, tonight he merely completes his stable chores with all due speed and hurries off to the armory. He’s got too much work to do, and is in far too good of a mood beside, to worry over the sharpness of Lamorak’s tongue._

_Lughnasagh. The morning dawns bright and crisp, the tang of autumn already in the air, though it’s August still. Percival rolls out of bed with the cock-crow and hurries into his clothes. Lancelot is already gone from their chambers. He’d told Percival not to expect to see him at all that day, and he’d said it with the sad half-smile that had left no doubt to his meaning. Percival had heard this calmly. If that had eased Lancelot’s mind, so much the better. If it hadn’t – well, perhaps that would be so much the best. Let Lancelot know that Percival has no intention of giving up._

_The morning is a blur of labor, as any holiday is for those who serve. Percival is first employed in the kitchens running ingredients up and down from the various pantries. Then, when the culinary duties at last flag, he’s sent down to the village to haul wood for the night’s massive bonfires. By the time that’s done, the festival is in full swing, and he’s allowed to join the revelry. By day it’s innocent; children run about, pipers and drummers play, youths dance. Percival does too, for a while. Then someone hands Percival an early apple, and he bites into it gladly: the fresh taste makes his mouth water. He eats it all. Thus reminded of food’s existence, his stomach voices a complaint, and Percival goes to join the crowd around the many trestle tables on the village green. No harvest festival is complete without a feast, and Percival eats his fill, sandwiched between the town’s jovial blacksmith and a bright-eyed farmer’s daughter. She tells them excitedly, between drinks of cider and bites of pie, that it’s her first autumn to be old enough to braid ribbons in her hair and jump over the smaller fires with her lover, for luck in next year’s harvest. Percival wishes her luck, crams the rest of his meat pie in his mouth, and gives up his seat to be filled by two giggling boys whose mama probably wants to know where they are._

_Percival himself makes his way back up to the castle. The days are still long at this time of the year, and it will be another hour or even two before the children are packed off to bed and the enormous bonfires lit. But Merlin had told Percival to find him early, and Percival won’t risk being late._

_He wends his way through the castle’s halls, up to the tower Merlin has claimed for his own, and knocks._

_“Aye, come in, lad,” Merlin’s now-familiar voice calls. Percival pushes open the door. The study and its exotic, scattered contents have ceased to surprise him, though Percival still takes care not to touch anything, coming to a halt in the safe center of the room. Merlin looks up from his book and nods._

_“It’s ready for ye, lad, just as I promised.” He reaches over to the far side of his desk and picks up a goblet. “Now, mind me. This will give you the seeming of one not yourself; an ordinary lad – sorry, a man – ” He grimaces; Percival had been insistent on that point, likely to the extent of annoyance. “In the garb of a villager. Beyond that it cannot go. Invent whatever name or history ye like.”_

_“How long will it last?”_

_“Until first light. Dawn disrupts most magic, unless the spell’s been made to last, and that costs Power.”_

_Percival nods. He must be gone by dawn, then, if he doesn’t wish Lancelot to discover his true identity. And if he does… he need only stay until dawn._

_That is the part Percival doesn’t quite have figured out yet._

_“The dissipation of the illusion will be abrupt, between one breath and the next,” Merlin says. “The commencement will not. It will take perhaps an hour, from when you drink the goblet, before the illusion is complete. Anyone who sees you during that time will not be swayed by the spell.”_

_“I understand,” Percival says. He’ll return to Lancelot’s chambers, then. Lancelot won’t come there; he’s sworn to avoid Percival all day, and the chambers will be an obvious place for Percival to be. He’ll drink the potion and wait. Then he’ll go forth, as the youth in the stories, and seek his destiny._

_“Then here,” Merlin says, holding the goblet out to him. “And good luck to ye, lad.”_

* * *

_The bonfires are in full flame when Percival slips from the castle at last and makes his way back down the hill to the green. The sky is a glittering carpet overhead, stars shining as brightly as they can as if in competition with the brilliance below. Laughter rises from the groups of people scattered around the bonfire. From others, voices can be heard telling stores. And from yet other groups come the slick sound of lips and bodies meeting, the moans of pleasure given and received._

_Percival has never tasted such pleasure. He hopes to receive it at last, from Lancelot’s hands. Before he had left the castle he had looked at himself in the small shaving-glass Lancelot keeps in his chambers. A stranger had looked back. Young but obviously of age, comely enough, with dark hair and a tan, but nothing like Percival. Emboldened, Percival had spoken with several palace denizens in the halls. All had taken him for a villager lost, and directed him back down to the village._

_Merlin’s work is good. Had he not used this same power of illusion to ensure Arthur Pendragon’s birth? Lancelot won’t recognize Percival. Percival need only find Lancelot, and the night can be his._

_Others are more easily found. Galahad is sitting between two beautiful women, flushed with mead and with the ministrations of the third person bobbing between his legs. Percival is startled to recognize the Queen herself. The King is nearby, leaning against a stump, watching greedily. As Percival passes on to the next group, he hears a familiar voice. Lamorak has turned the flat of his tongue outwards and is holding a crowd spellbound with a story Percival is startled to recognize as happening during their last campaign. When had Lamorak had time to find a sheep, much less – but then Percival catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, and spins towards it, all other thoughts forgotten._

_Lancelot, like Arthur, is sitting and watching another knot of people; but unlike Arthur, he doesn’t look enraptured by what he sees. Percival follows Lancelot’s gaze. A pair of youths, scarcely older than Percival himself, are lying next to a bonfire kissing. Percival looks closer, but he can see nothing displeasing. Yet Lancelot looks disgruntled, and shifts around as if thinking of getting up._

_The evening, and the anonymity of Merlin’s disguise, make Percival bold. He walks up to Lancelot and says, “You look as if you don’t like sitting alone.”_

_Lancelot looks up at him. “Perhaps I like sitting alone so much that even this crowd is distasteful to me.”_

_That… can that be true? Percival hadn’t thought of what he would do if Lancelot didn’t want_ anyone _on Lughnasagh. He’d thought Lancelot merely didn’t want_ him _– or had determined not to have him, more like._

_Then Lancelot smiles suddenly. “I’m sorry, lad. I shouldn’t tease. I forget you don’t know my humors.”_

_Percival laughs, a cover for his own relief. “Perhaps you will tell me more jokes, then,” he invites, daring to settle tailor-seated next to the knight. “So that I will know your humor better.”_

_In front of the fire, the two kissing youths stand up and walk away, hand in hand. Lancelot watches them go, then turns back to Percival-in-disguise. “Perhaps I don’t know any jokes.”_

_A matron wanders by them; she is carrying a gourd, and offers it to them both. Lancelot shakes his head. Percival, seeking boldness, or at least striving to affect it, accepts. The contents of the gourd burn going down his throat, and he swallows hard. There’s a spiciness to the taste that lingers._

_“Careful with that,” Lancelot says. “First Lughnasagh?”_

_“Is it that obvious?”_

_Lancelot nods, but not unkindly._

_“Any words of advice?” Percival wants to kick himself as soon as the words leave his mouth. The question is uncomfortable, reminiscent of a relationship between them that Percival doesn’t want Lancelot to adopt._

_And indeed, Lancelot is looking at Percival with a different air than before. “My advice? Find someone your own age.” He shifts his position, not quite getting up and moving away, but putting more space between them than Percival had left when he’d sat down._

_“That’s not what my mam always said,” Percival tells him. “She said ‘twas best to find someone with experience to start off with, so then you’d always know what you deserved.”_

_“She never,” Lancelot says, amused._

_Percival lays his hand across his heart. “On my honor,” he says. Then he leans forward, conspiratorial. “To be fair, she were talking to my eldest sister at the time.”_

_That makes Lancelot laugh. Percival leans closer still, eager to capture the sound, and then the world spins and he finds himself sprawling. Lancelot catches him before he faceplants entirely. “I warned you about that homebrew,” he sighs. “How much did you drink?”_

_“Only a few swallows,” Percival protests._

_“As much as that?” Lancelot attempts to shift, but Percival has finally realized that he’s landed half in Lancelot’s lap, and is in no hurry to move. Lancelot is warm, skin-warm, and around them the heat of the fire seems to be magnified. Sparks fly upwards, illuminating his face in brief flashes of light. From somewhere comes the sound of laughter, long and low and wicked. Lancelot bends over Percival, looking concerned. For him. Heat curls in Percival’s belly, and he raises his head clumsily to try to capture Lancelot’s lips with his own._

_He succeeds for the briefest of moments, a single mead-damp eternity – ah, so that’s what had been in the empty cup by Lancelot’s side – before Lancelot pulls back. “Child – ”_

_“I am not a child,” Percival says pettishly. “The children are in bed. Everyone still awake is an adult.”_

_“_ You _are more asleep than awake,” Lancelot says, amusement creeping back into his tone. “What does that make you?”_

_“Dreaming.”_

_“Ah…” Lancelot looks up, past Percival in his lap, out at the fire or the revelry or the dancing. “What is it about me,” he muses, and Percival starts to hear the bitterness in his tone, “that attracts all these fresh young things?”_

_Percival must make a noise, all involuntary, because Lancelot looks back down at him. “Can you answer that?” Lancelot asks. “Of everyone here, you chose to sit next to me. Your first Lughnasagh, and you can’t tell me there’s no one else in the village that never caught your eye.”_

_“Someone did,” Percival says. “You did.”_

_Something slides closed over Lancelot’s face. “At the festival.” He nods to himself. “So you know who I am, that I have a noble position – ”_

_“No!” Percival cries, stung. Emboldened by drink and surprise, he does what Percival-the-squire would never do, and answers Lancelot’s question with one of his own. “What is it about you that makes you so sure you could not be desired for any other reason?”_

_This stuns Lancelot into silence. Percival surges to his knees and takes shameless advantage, leaning forward to kiss the other man again. Lancelot’s mouth is slack against his, to begin with. Then something seems to awaken in the older man. He kisses Percival back, and God above, it’s everything and more Percival could have ever dreamed. Firm without being forceful, enticing without being demanding – and it’s Percival who ends up overreaching, eager for more, pressing into Lancelot until Lancelot puts his hands against Percival’s shoulders and pushes him away._

_“My reasons are my own,” Lancelot says. The bonfire nearest them has dwindled some, and his face is cast in shadow. “It should be enough for you to know that they exist. Go elsewhere, young man. You asked for my advice; that is it.”_

_“I never promised to listen to it,” Percival says hotly. “And tonight of all nights, what matter your reasons?”_

_“They should matter to you.”_

_“But if they do not, why should they matter to_ you _?”_

_Someone throws another log on the fire. Sparks fly; by their light, Lancelot looks almost wild. “Perhaps they do not,” he says roughly, and seizes Percival by the back of the neck._

_The kiss this time has lost its earlier restraint. Lancelot demands, takes, plunders; Percival clings to him, barely able to hold on. This is the same fury Percival has felt behind Lancelot’s sword-strikes, his hand-to-hand, but channeled in a new and different direction. It makes Percival’s blood burn, that and the fire and the homebrew and the sudden realization that this is it, this is Lancelot, as Percival has wanted and dreamed and worked for. Percival hears a moan. Knows it for his own. Abandons caution, driving forward to match Lancelot’s ferocity with as much of his own as he can muster._

_Lancelot rips his lips away, swears, and yanks at Percival’s loose villager garb. It gives easily, sliding over his head and being tossed aside without a care. Percival makes a noise of protest, but Lancelot ignores him, bending his head and – oh – oh – he’d known_ women _would like this, the other squires gossip, but no one had mentioned that it might feel good for him too, to have a wet mouth and a stroking tongue over his flat nipples. Percival squirms, panting._

_He cradles Lancelot’s head gently, holding him against his chest. When Lancelot moves from one side to another, the nipple left behind prickles and hardens in the cooling night air. Another couple straggle drunkenly past, one of them letting out a call of approval. Percival is past caring. But Lancelot looks up, calling back and holding out a hand. One of them unslings a gourd from around his neck and hands it to him. Then the two stumble off into the night._

_Lancelot takes a swig. Percival watches his throat move in the firelight. But when Percival reaches out to take the gourd, Lancelot pulls it away. Instead he leans close and kisses Percival again, feeding Percival sips of liquor from his own lips. Percival’s senses reel. He closes his eyes as the world begins to spin dizzily._

_When he opens them again, he’s lying on his side. Lancelot is nowhere to be seen, but there’s the warmth of skin against his back, the moist huff of breath against his neck, and a pleasing hardness nudging at the space between his legs. He’s nude now, his bottoms gone, and he cannot say where. Nor does he care. A moment later the hardness is joined by a gentle finger nudging between his buttocks. He hisses, involuntary._

_“Christ,” Lancelot mutters against Percival’s ear. “I shall hurt you.” The finger disappears._

_“No!” The cry bursts from Percival’s lips. He tries to roll over, to make Lancelot look at him, but can’t make his limbs work properly. He ends up flopped on his back like a beached fish. “I am stronger than that.”_

_“No need to take everything at once,” Lancelot says with infuriating reason. “Plenty of other ways to share pleasure.”_

_But tomorrow will be another day, and Percival will wake up a squire and a servant and never have another chance to feel Lancelot’s body against his. He shakes his head wildly, and tears prick the corners of his eyes. “But I want to,” he says. He sounds petulant even to himself, and fear grips him: will Lancelot think of him as a child now, move away from him?_

_There’s a moment of silence, and matters seem to dance on the edge of a knife. But then Lancelot gives a low laugh of his own. “It is a night for wild and daring choices, isn’t it? Very well, bold one,” he murmurs. “You shall have your desire.”_

_Percival goes nearly limp with relief. This seems to be a blessing, for when, a moment later, Lancelot’s questing fingers reappear, the first of them nudges their way into Percival’s opening with less in the way of difficulty. They’re wet and slippery with the contents of one of the vials of olive oil scattered around the fires for the use of any who need it. And Lancelot needs it, or rather Percival does: he is a virgin, to self-pleasure as much as to the touch of another. But Lancelot is patient and gentle, and when he finally slides the first finger fully into Percival’s body, he leans over and takes Percival’s cock into his mouth as well._

_Percival nearly spends himself right there. He had known this is possible, of course, had heard the practice of fellatio spoken of, described, even worshipped among the other squires. But the reality is nothing like it. The reality is hot and wet and the knowledge that it’s Lancelot, Lancelot’s tongue stroking him from frenulum to tip, Lancelot’s cheeks hollowing out around him –_

_Lancelot finds something inside him that make the sparks from the fire explode inside his body, and he comes with a shout._

_The world spins lazily. Percival blinks. “The stars are dancing,” he says, his voice sounding very far away._

_Lancelot’s laughter, by contrast, sounds close by. “That may be the nicest compliment I’ve ever received.”_

_He’s released Percival’s cock, letting it flop against Percival’s thigh to cool slowly in the evening air, but there’s a second finger moving inside Percival now, and a third begins to quest for entrance. Percival hisses, already sore. He shifts his hips slightly, searching for greater comfort, only to find he cannot move. Lancelot is lying beside him now, right arm working between his thighs, right leg thrown across Percival’s hips. “No, no,” Lancelot says sternly. “You asked for this; you shall have what you bargained for.”_

_Percival moans. Already he feels his cock stirring again. There is less urgency now than before, but in its place is an emotion that makes Percival want to weep – not out of sorrow, nor exactly out of joy, but just out of sheer feeling. The world feels sharp and bright, everything overwhelming and present and real._

_Lancelot removes his fingers from Percival’s body and himself from Percival’s side. He comes to kneel in between Percival’s splayed thighs, and in the firelight Percival can see Lancelot’s hand working at his own hardness. Lancelot is long and thick and shining slick from the oil, and Percival longs to taste him. But before he can so much as twitch, Lancelot grasps Percival by the hips and hauls him bodily into Lancelot’s lap._

_Inch by glorious inch, Percival sinks down. Lancelot kisses him through the worst of it, feeding him more of that burning homebrew and making Percival reel. When Percival falters, Lancelot adds a hand around Percival’s half-hard cock. Percival hears his own cries echoing back from the trees, from the bonfires, from the stars above. He rises and falls, falls and rises. It’s as inexorable as the tides. He barely feels his own cock twitch weakly and spend a second time._

_“Shh,” Lancelot murmurs, stroking Percival’s sweat-soaked head where it has fallen, limp, on Lancelot’s shoulder. He’s released Percival’s cock, mercifully: even just the slight friction where it rubs against Lancelot’s body makes him shudder and twitch. “Almost done, my brave one. There…” He sighs, thighs stilling, and Percival feels the warmth of Lancelot’s come spreading within him._

_There’s silence then, punctuated only by the crackle of the fires and the softening moans of the others still scattered around the green. The moon is low in the sky. Percival blinks at it blearily. Something is tugging at his memory. Dawn. Something about dawn._

_“Deep breath, now.” Lancelot’s arms flex – so strong, thick with muscle – and lift Percival’s body from Lancelot’s lap. Percival hisses, spasming with the pain of it, sudden and sharp. Unfair, for pleasure to hurt so. He wants to cry with the injustice of it. But why should this be any different? Becoming a page, a squire – a knight, should it chance so – all of that has taken pain, and a great deal of it. Anything worth having must be paid for. All births come with pain._

_Lancelot picks up Percival’s discarded shirt and puts it back on him. The bottoms are nowhere to be found. Lancelot rises, and Percival is urged upright likewise. He stands there, wearing the shirt of his disguise, feeling something cold slide down one of his legs, and shivers. The fires have burned awfully low. The night is nearly over. And in the darkness before dawn Percival cannot see Lancelot’s face._

_“Can you walk?” Lancelot asks._

_“Of course I can,” Percival says, wounded in more than his pride. He can’t quite express, even to himself, why this question hurts him so. He only knows that he feels more like a child, standing here with his arms around himself, than he has since he’d come to Arthur’s court._

_Lancelot reaches out. Percival steps back. Then he cries out, and goes to one knee._

_“Brave to the end, eh?” Lancelot shakes his head. But he sounds fond. Percival knows that tone of voice. Lancelot steps closer again, and bends down. One arm slides beneath Percival’s knees. The other wraps around his shoulders. Lancelot grunts, muscles going taut with tension, and he hefts Percival bodily into his arms._

_“What – what are you doing?” Percival can hear himself slurring. His head lolls back, and he looks up at the stars again. Dawn, he thinks. Dawn means something._

_“Taking you to bed,” Lancelot says. “We’ll sort it out in the morning. Go to sleep, Percival.”_

_There’s something about that that Percival should care about, too. But thinking of what is abruptly too much effort. Percival is drunk and exhausted and aching, warm and held and drowning in the afterglow. Lancelot’s stride is smooth, his footfalls even and rhythmic. He encourages Percival to rest his head against Lancelot’s shoulder. Percival does so, closes his eyes, and forgets to worry about anything at all._


	11. Chapter 11

Merlin watches the footage from the tailor’s shop three times, swearing as he does in languages that Harry has still somehow never managed to learn.

“Has she made us?” Harry demands. “Does Morgana know that _we_ are Kingsman?”

Merlin watches it a fourth time and shakes his head slowly. “If she does, I cannae find any trace of it,” is his final verdict. “No magic, no sideways looks, nary a hint in her word or demeanor. If it were anyone else I’d say nay. But this is Morgana. She knows how to keep a secret.”

As they’d learned to their peril. When Morgana had first come to Camelot, she had adopted the guise of a poor half-sister, Ygraine’s youngest daughter, come to seek a home at Arthur’s court after Ygraine had died. She had said nothing of any talent for magic, and had feigned to watch such simple parlor tricks as Merlin had occasionally used to entertain the court with wide eyes and a winning innocence. Arthur had been kind to her, and in her Guinevere had found more than a sister-by-marriage; she had found a friend. For that alone Arthur had loved her. Guinevere had been lonely in her marriage, and childless, too, though Arthur’s attentions to her had only increased after Galahad had departed to seek the Grail. Morgana had arrived in the third year of Galahad’s absence, when Guinevere’s hopes were all but turned to despair, and lifted her spirits, at least for a time. Little had Arthur known – little had any of them known – that Morgana would be revealed as a powerful enchantress, and that her simple-seeming friendship with her half-brother’s wife would ultimately lead to the ruin of Camelot and all Arthur held dear.

“Yes,” Harry agrees heavily. “She knows how to keep a secret.”

To Chester King, Harry spins a believable tale of evidence and clues that link the mysterious woman to Lancelot’s death. The links are falsified, but the accusation is true. With Chester’s blessing, Harry orders round-the-clock surveillance on Morgana – or rather, Gazelle Valentine, as her current ID proclaims her to be. He also orders a guard placed on Percival’s room in the medical bay, just in case Morgana tries to finish the job. Chester scoffs at the necessity of that, but Harry persuades him that it’s good alertness training for the remaining candidates. Therefore Charlie, Eggsy, and Roxy take eight-hour shifts apiece, meaning that Percival (and Lancelot) are adequately guarded for at least sixteen hours a day. Charlie Hesketh is the sort of egotistical young lordling Harry would have enjoyed seeing the Master of Pages grind into the dirt of the practice-fields. But needs must when the devil drives. At least the loyalty test is happening soon. Harry fully expects Charlie to wash out so hard he won’t need to do laundry for a month.

Andrew texts Harry that Eggsy’s suit is ready the day before the honeypot mission. Harry picks it up and waits until the candidates have departed for the nightclub before draping it on Eggsy’s bed. Then he goes to the overlook hidden beside the train tracks to watch.

Eggsy, as expected, passes with flying colours. Roxanne is more of a surprise. Not that she’d refuse to give up Kingsman – that much had been a foregone conclusion – but that she’d be so calm about it. She almost looks bored, and her glances at the oncoming train seem more appraising than anguished. Had someone tipped her off that the test is a fake? Merlin? He might have been thinking of the need to keep Eggsy from the knighthood. Harry files it away in the back of his mind to ask later.

Charlie’s flame-out is glorious to behold. Harry grins when the boy begins spilling his guts. Chester curses nearly as fluently as Merlin, though he does it in English. Harry could have told him that Charlie had no bottom, but some people always have to do things the hard way.

Chester stomps off in high dudgeon after his candidate’s failure, ridding them all of his presence. Bors marches Charlie off to be mind-wiped. Merlin congratulates both remaining candidates, then, standing in for Percival, takes Roxy off for the traditional twenty-four hours. That leaves Harry and Eggsy alone.

“Bloody well done,” Harry praises. “Put on your suit; we’re going out.”

“My suit?” Eggsy looks even more excited at this news than he had at learning that he’s a finalist for the knighthood. “It’s ready?”

“Yes indeed. And you have – ” Harry checks his watch ostentatiously. “ – ten minutes to get dressed and meet me here.”

“Or else what?” Eggsy asks warily. It’s not cheeky; it’s the beginnings of a most appropriate paranoia. Excellent. Eggsy is learning.

Harry smiles at him brightly. “Or else we’ll be late for our dinner reservation.”

Eggsy goggles at him.

“Twenty-four hours, do you not recall? I must have you back here in time for the final Trial. So if you please…” Harry taps his watch again.

Eggsy disappears into the candidates’ dormitory with gratifying speed. He reappears in nine minutes and forty-five seconds precisely; were one to include the time Eggsy had spent asking questions, he would have been seven seconds late. But despite appearances, Harry doesn’t actually carry Excalibur around up his ass, as Lancelot had once memorably accused him of doing. So Harry lets it go. Or at least he intends to. Galahad, as always, surprises him. “I’m over, ain’t I?” Eggsy says miserably.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Harry lies baldly. Galahad would have known it for a lie at once; would have given Arthur an incredulous look, here in public, for patronizing him, and then a thorough scolding later in private. He would also make Harry eat each and every one of those words before finally letting Harry apologize. But Eggsy can’t read Harry that well. He knows he’s late, but isn’t confident enough to assert that Harry’s sense of time is equally fine. He ducks his head in confusion and mumbles something to his shoes.

“Don’t just stand there; come along.” Harry tucks his umbrella more firmly under his arm and steers Eggsy towards the door. As he does, he gives his beloved another gift, silent apology for the lies Harry will later tell. “If you think you’re late, you can see if you can make the time up driving.”

Eggsy’s whoop of joy lingers behind them as they exit to the street.  

* * *

Eggsy drives as he does everything else – magnificently. They arrive at the restaurant well within the time Harry had allotted him, and Eggsy manages to make the handoff to the valet look as smooth as if he’d grown up driving his father’s expensive cars. Harry guides him up the stairs with a hand at the small of his back and tries not to give in to the urge to stroke the fabric under his fingers, as close as he can come to the skin underneath.

The outside of the restaurant is modest, an old building scrupulously well kept up but not particularly fancy. The inside, by contrast, is opulence personified. Eggsy’s lips purse in a soundless whistle. “Nando’s is really cleaning up nice these days,” he says, and Harry laughs.

“My dear boy, it’s only the best for you,” he says cheerfully. The maître d’ materializes, and Harry nods at him with comfortable grace. “Good evening, Jones.”

“Good evening, Mr. Hart, Mr. Unwin.” Jones holds up a hand, and a severely starched waiter appears with equal suddenness. If only Kingsman were half so effective, Harry had often thought. “Please allow Bailey to attend to you this evening. Your usual table will, I trust, be sufficient?”

“Quite so,” Harry agrees. Bailey inclines the barest inch at the waist and spins on his spit-shined heel. Harry follows. Eggsy does as well, though he stares around him with barely-concealed excitement.

“Does it meet your standards?” Harry asks, once they’re seated and he’s agreed with Bailey that the sommelier would, indeed, be by promptly. “You did say a _fancy_ dinner, so I mortgaged the townhouse.”

“Ah, so that’s how we’ll be able to afford the wine,” Eggsy says, eyes sparkling. “Though – ” he’s picked up the menu and has taken it in in a glance. “Perhaps only a glass apiece, if we want to also afford food.”

“If you don’t order the lobster, we might even be able to stretch to dessert.”

“Well, if not, we’ll just have to make our own… dessert.” The smirk Eggsy gives Harry over the menu ought to be classified as torture by the Geneva Convention, promising as it does so many things that Harry aches to accept and simply can’t.

The appearance of the sommelier saves Harry from having to reply, at least, and thank Christ for _that_ small miracle.

Dickering over wine is actually something Harry enjoys, has for centuries now. Percival has told him to his face that he’s a snob on at least four occasions and implied it at least a dozen more. That doesn’t stop Percival from enjoying Harry’s cellar, though. He’s passed control of it down to himself through five lifetimes now. And given the extra motivation of putting off the true purpose of tonight’s dinner, Harry takes his time.

But nothing lasts forever. Eventually the sommelier receives Harry’s decision and departs. Eggsy puts down the straw he’s been fiddling with and gives Harry the full benefit of his wide-eyed stare. “How long did it take you to learn that much about wines?”

_Several hundred years,_ Harry thinks. “A while,” he says.

“Well, maybe you can teach me?”

“I can try,” Harry says. The request is of a piece with others Eggsy has made over the course of their acquaintance in this lifetime. He’s wanted to know how to wear a suit, how to tie different knots in a tie, how to conduct oneself at a fancy restaurant such as this. In short, Eggsy has asked Harry to teach Eggsy to be a gentleman. He feels the lack, for all that he presents a brash and self-confident face to the world. Everyone, Galahad had once told Arthur, feels an innate drive to better oneself – an innate pull towards the highest and best they can be. And while Harry might quibble that knowing how to tie a four-in-hand and remembering which fork are which is hardly the mark of an innately superior being, he also knows that that’s not really what Galahad had meant. Nor even what Eggsy had meant, when he’d asked Harry to teach him. _Manners maketh man_ , Galahad had said once to an uptight young lordling in Camelot who’d thought his father’s estate had entitled him automatically to a seat at the Round Table. That had been when Arthur had decreed that everyone who wished to become a knight must first serve as a squire, and had taken great pleasure in seeing the lordling limp home in disgrace at the end of that very season.

The motto is a good one. Harry has lived by it ever since. And if true nobility lies in being superior to one’s former self, well, at least Morgana’s curse has given Harry many lifetimes in which to strive for that goal. And now an opportunity to begin the process of ending the curse – once and for all.

The moment presents itself, and Harry takes the first quiet step. “I’ve taught others, in my time.”

“Others?” Eggsy’s glance up and back down at his wineglass is a mere flicker. More than enough to betray the sudden shift in his attention. “Other Kingsmen?”

“At times,” Harry allows. “But come, you aren’t here to listen to my war stories.”

“Are you kidding? I’m fascinated.” Eggsy looks away, swallows. Looks back. “Were you there when – when my father – ”

“Yes, your father,” Harry muses. The ache of this settles into his bones, but he had agreed. He acknowledges the necessity. Arthur Pendragon had never been a man to flinch from hard choices, even if this is harder than most. “He was a good man. He saved my life.”

“He did?” Eggsy leans forward, innocent in his eagerness. Harry can read his soul in a single glance; his grief for his father’s loss combines with the idealization of his memory, and all of it has been neatly caught up in this drive to be a Kingsman, to prove that he can be his father’s son. Eggsy is untaught in dissimilation beyond the broad strokes necessary to survive his childhood. It makes his tender points so painfully obvious.

“Why, of course,” Harry says, feigning surprise. It’s shameful to play on him this way. For the dozenth time Harry tells himself that his beloved will understand. “Surely your mother told you?”

“No,” Eggsy falters, shaking his head. “She – I guess she didn’t want me to know all the gory details.”

“Then I would certainly not presume to contradict her,” Harry says. Michelle Unwin, of course, knows nothing: that routine omission makes this possible. “Besides. I believe I promised you philosophy.”

Eggsy begins to speak, doubtless to attempt to put Harry back on the track of Lee Unwin, when the efficient Bailey returns with the wine and begins to pour. Eggsy’s ill-concealed impatience worsens when Bailey then asks if the gentlemen are ready to order, and turns into a positive glower when Harry answers in the affirmative.

Still, Eggsy acquits himself well enough in the manner of politeness: he can’t have more than glanced at the menu since they’d sat down, but he orders with assurance, possibly helped by the fact that any restaurant of this calibre is guaranteed to have a fine steak on its menu. Harry opts for the fish, himself. Something lighter in his stomach, and less likely to enrich his blood.

Order taken, Bailey departs. Eggsy opens and closes his mouth several times, clearly desperate to restart their previous conversation, but unsure how. Harry doesn’t help him. Information implantation is a delicate art. Eggsy Unwin may be an easier fish to catch than most of his usual targets, but Harry is still a professional. Set the hook, then let the line play. Make the fish come to you.

“My father,” Eggsy blurts out at last, blunt and without finesse, as if he can’t help himself. “I – please tell me. Whatever you know. Please.”

The wave of tender protectiveness takes Harry off-guard. He’d have thought he’d be used to this feeling by now. Galahad had been a warrior before he’d ever come to Camelot, for all that Arthur had made him spend a season as Lancelot’s squire before letting him take the Trial. Once becoming a knight, Galahad had never been far from the center of the battlefield. And there had been so many battlefields. So many times Arthur had watched his beloved ride out, not knowing if he’d return, even before Morgana’s curse had turned all the odds against them. So Harry ought to be well and truly braced for the feeling by now; but it rolls over him like a wave, and he drowns.

“I will tell you,” he says, gently.

Harry is as good as his word. As the courses of their meal come and go, he tells Eggsy everything, starting from the very first moment he’d taken notice of Lee Unwin – covert mission in the Sudan, had to skirt around local peacekeeping forces, got a first-hand view of an unusually proactive British soldier defusing a situation with diplomacy instead of guns.

“It may seem like an odd recommendation for a gentleman spy, especially if you look at some of the more modern movies,” Harry says, with a dismissive flick of his fingers for Daniel Craig and his ilk, “but the best missions are the ones where your target never realizes you were there. A Kingsman needs to be just as fast with his words and his wits as he is with his gun. To know when to shoot, yes, but also when _not_ to shoot.”

Harry had had Merlin find him the soldier’s file, and taken note of Lee Unwin against some future need – a liaison, a front man, a possible future recruit to Merlin’s division. He hadn’t been thinking of Lee as a candidate for knighthood; not then. It would be another two years before Lancelot IV would die in Chechnya, and Harry would nominate Lee for the seat.

“And he went through the same thing I am,” Eggsy says, breathless at the thought. “He got pretty far, didn’t he? He got almost to the end? Merlin said so.”

What Harry wants to say is this: _the moment I saw the candidates assembled, and realized who Bors had nominated, I knew that your father would lose. I knew that James Spencer was Lancelot reincarnated, the true Lancelot; that he would know the secret paths through all the trials, and that your father would never place better than second. But I let him continue on anyway. I didn’t tell your father to drop out, or withdraw him, or trip him up on one of the earlier tests where failure would have had little in the way of consequences. I let him continue because – because he wanted to, it’s true, and that’s reason enough, and if that were the only reason it might even be noble. But I also let him continue because I wanted his skills for Kingsman. Second place candidates are frequently offered a different post elsewhere in the organization. And even that might not be too bad of a reason to have risked Lee Unwin’s life; for King and Country, as it were. But there’s a third reason, and that was simply to piss off Chester King. To rub his nose in the fact that a commoner born could be just as noble as he with his so-called blue blood. That was unworthy of me, to let a man risk his life for so little. And when Lee died, I compounded my fault, by not acting towards you and your mother as you deserved. Kingsman has its rules, but I was Arthur Pendragon before I was a Kingsman, and Lee was my sworn vassal, whether he knew it or no. I owed him more. I owed you more. I am so sorry._

What Harry says is: “Yes. Your father reached the final stage of the Trials. Just as you have now done.”

Harry remembers Eggsy, lying on the train tracks, beautiful and defiant in the face of a death he _didn’t know_ wasn’t real. Asserting that Kingsman, that Britain, is still worth dying for. The image is seared in Harry’s mind next to a collection of others. Galahad kneeling at his feet, swearing fealty and receiving knighthood from Arthur’s hands. Galahad in Arthur’s bed later, a man and a knight and finally enough Arthur’s equal to be joined with pleasure as they’d both wished. Galahad reborn, standing in the ruins of Camelot, four lifetimes later but still as steady and unwavering as he had been the first time around. Galeas at the siege of Jerusalem, giving Arturius a look as bright as a kiss before leading a charge against the gates…

“And now only the final Trial remains,” Eggsy says, just as illuminated and fierce as he had been in the Holy Land. “I won’t let you down, Harry. I won’t let my _father_ down.”

Harry watches him, this boy burning more brightly than the candles at the tables or the pendant lamps overhead, and trembles. Galahad is the most powerful of them all, he thinks. Uncontained, uncontrolled by memory, that power could be their destruction just as easily as it could be their salvation.

Then Eggsy’s fire dims. It doesn’t diminish, but it banks itself, turning from a flame into a hot-burning ember. “My father,” Eggsy says. “You were there. Tell me, Harry, please. How did he die?”

“There was an attack,” Harry says. “During the final Trial. Not part of the plan. The Trials used to be more dangerous – ” he waits for Eggsy’s snort, but it doesn’t come. The matter is too series. “But this wasn’t remotely intended.”

“Who attacked you?” Eggsy leans forward, intent.

Now the lies begin. “For years we didn’t know.”

“What do you mean you didn’t know?” Incredulity wars with outrage on Eggsy’s face. “You’re a spy organization, how do you not know?”

“As far as we could tell, she didn’t exist. We were never able to get an ID. She’d never reappeared on any other facial records. She left no prints, all our leads turned to dust… we looked for years. Nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all? Not a single fucking clue?” Outrage is winning, anger easier to sustain than disbelief or grief.

“She ran away so quickly, after your father…”

Eggsy swallows. “He saved your life.”

“He threw himself in front of her blade.”

“She had a _sword_?”

Harry smiles humorlessly. “Stranger than that. Prosthetic metal feet, sharpened to a deadly edge.” Magical, of course. Forged from the same material as Excalibur. Morgana had crafted them for herself sometime in the seventeenth century. As they’d learned to their chagrin during the English Civil War. Galahad had been their first victim; Lancelot’s wounds had shown him to be their latest.

“Swords for feet,” Eggsy says numbly. “So she – she gutted him?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. It’s far too little, and far too much, at the same time.

“And you never found her again.” Eggsy’s voice is beginning to rise; a passing waiter gives him an inquiring look, and Eggsy lowers it again, down to almost a whisper but no less fierce for all that. “This person killed my father while he was surrounded by a bunch of superspies – and then she ran away and you never found her again? Never found out why, never got revenge?”

“Even we lose sometimes, Eggsy,” Harry says, truthful and suddenly utterly weary. “More than sometimes. We just have to keep winning the ones that matter.”

There’s a silence. Then Eggsy says, “When I’m a Kingsman, I will find her. I’ll kill her and avenge my father.”

Harry looks at him. Eggsy flushes. “You don’t think I can do it? Well, I will. There’s got to be a file, a record of my father’s death – every organization keeps records. I’ll start there...”

Harry wants to say, _I’m counting on it._ He wants to say, _Don’t. I’ve watched Morgana kill you too many times – oh, my beloved, don’t go again._ He wants to say _, I’m so sorry. Everything I told you about your father’s death is a lie, coldly calculated to achieve exactly this result._ Wants to say, _you are our only hope. Please, save us all._

Destruction or salvation, he thinks. No way to know which path leads to which outcome. Weight the dice as they may, eventually they must be cast, and fate, Arthur knows too well, is capricious.

“I’ll show you,” Eggsy says, the reflected light of the candles burning in his eyes. “You’ll see.”

“Yes,” Harry says softly. “I believe we shall.”


	12. Chapter 12

_The sound of metal meeting wood stabs Percival through a haze of drunken sleep, and he moans, decidedly less erotically than he had been doing the night before. Oh, God, the night before. Memory hardly lags behind wakefulness. Lugsanach had been a tremendous success – everything he’d hoped for and dreamed of, all in one magical night by the fires – up until the part where Lancelot had called him by name and carried him back to his own bed._

_Dreading what he’ll find, Percival pries open his eyes._

_Reality does not disappoint him. Lancelot is sitting in the chair usually to be found at his desk, which he must have dragged into the small closet that serves Percival as a bedchamber. A small table has appeared likewise – the camp table that Lancelot takes on campaigns, Percival sees. The sound of metal hitting wood must have been caused by the flagon and plate that Percival sees upon the table. The rest of Percival’s room is unaltered. This leaves Percival with nowhere else to look save Lancelot. Lancelot is watching him likewise, and the expression on his face is grim._

_Percival opens his mouth. He has nothing to say, however. He closes it again._

_Lancelot does not suffer from this fate. “I have been this last hour berating Merlin,” he says conversationally, tone at odds with the sternness of his visage. “First, for being such a damn fool idiot as to give you the use of an illusion-spell in the first place. And second, for being such a bigger fool as to let it fall apart at the critical moment.”_

_Percival groans._ Dawn _, Merlin had said. Percival would have sworn that it had yet been night when their coupling had completed. But he had been drunk on mead and homebrew and sheer adrenaline… and yet, so drunk as to fail to notice the sun appearing over the horizon? Hardly._

_“Merlin said some interesting things to me in return,” Lancelot goes on. “First, he reminded me – sounding awfully like you, in fact – that you are a man, with as much right to decide what you ask for as any other. And that he is well within his rights to bespell any he chooses, or none. This much I must allow to be fair. But what he said next is_ truly _fascinating. Do you want to know what it is?”_

_Percival swallows. Slowly he lowers the blanket and forces himself to a sitting position, tailor-seat upon his cot. His head pounds like the devil and he nearly heaves, but stubborn pride him moving, keeps the bile between his teeth. The world spins by the time he’s upright._

_Lancelot notices. Of course he does. And he picks up the goblet and hands it to Percival. “Watered wine,” he says. “Drink it.”_

_Percival looks at the glass with loathing. “More alcohol?”_

_“First hangover?” Lancelot’s teeth flash when he grins; for the first time Percival notices, looking past Lancelot into the main room of his chambers, that the heavy curtains are still drawn over the one small window, the candles and torches unlit. The rooms are dim. A mercy. For him? “The best way down is slowly, lad – Percival. The watered wine will help. Drink it. I also brought dry bread.” He gestures to the metal plate. “You won’t want anything else for a few hours, I warrant.”_

_Percival barely wants anything_ now _, so he has very little trouble believing that. But the habit of obedience is strong. He gets half of the contents of the goblet down before his stomach even realizes what’s happening. There’s a bad moment when he has to clap his hand over his mouth to keep the watered wine down. Lancelot helps, patting him on the back and offering words of encouragement. After a few heartbeats Percival is able to swallow the rest of the goblet. He puts it down on the camp table, eyeing it with loathing. The dry bread he doesn’t even attempt._

_“There,” Lancelot says. “Now you’re in some shape to listen to what I have to tell you. Pay attention, Percival; this is important.”_

_Percival nods, slowly. The slowness is a good decision, as it only makes his head spin. His stomach stays mercifully still. Perhaps there’s something to this watered wine after all._

_“I asked Merlin why, in God’s name, he would let you use an illusion spell that would break at the worst possible time. He was very offended. Evidently illusion spells are a specialty. He swore to me that no illusion spell of_ his _would break for any but the cardinal reasons.”_

_“The cardinal reasons?” Percival croaks. The sound of his own voice startles him. He eyes the empty goblet, almost wishing it full again._

_“Magic,” Lancelot says, adopting a lecturer’s tone, “is affected by the cardinal forces of the universe. Certain among them are well-known for disturbing spells. These forces_ can _be overcome, but only by the use of extra power. Power which Merlin did not think would be merited for such a spell as you had asked of him.”_

_“He told me it would wear off at dawn,” Percival remembered. “Because he had not strengthened it.”_

_Lancelot nods. “Indeed, dawn is one such force. But the spell did not wear off at dawn. The spell vanished from you at the very moment I came within you – at the end of our joining, and wanting still an hour to daybreak.”_

_Percival winces._

_“Indeed, imagine how I felt,” Lancelot agrees. “There I was, enjoying a daring liaison with a bold village youth as a way to take my mind_ off _my too-tempting, too-persistent squire, when, at the very moment of consummation, I find myself holding no villager at all, but the very youth whose charms I was trying to forget.”_

_“Charms?” Percival’s fingers scrabble over the rough nap of his woolen blanket, searching for a handhold in a rapidly spinning world. “So you do – you do – ”_

_Lancelot brushes this aside impatiently. “Now, what does this suggest to you, young squire? Come, show me all of the training I and Merlin have put into you has not been in vain.”_

_Percival’s head is pounding hard enough that he’s surprised it’s not being used to direct an entire cavalry regiment to charge. He’s also flushing so red he goes from cold to hot in the span of a single breath, and the fire’s not even lit yet. But he strains his faculties, and comes up with a guess: “Orgasms disrupt magic?”_

_Lancelot shakes his head. “If that were true, lad, Ygraine would have killed Uther as soon as she realized who was in bed with her.”_

_“Ah.” Percival contemplates this. “Right. So…”_

_“Dawn,” Lancelot says. “Death. And?”_

_Percival thinks back to every fairy tale his mother had ever told him. His mouth drops open in shock. Say not orgasm, but consummation…_ and they lived happily ever after…

_“You seem to have drawn the correct conclusion,” Lancelot says, observing his reaction. “Consummation. But not simple rutting, eh? Or else…”_

_“Uther and Ygraine, aye.” Slowly Percival closes his mouth again. And then he smirks. “I fancy more than I feel, do I?”_

_Lancelot has the grace to look ashamed. “I was misled by your youth.”_

_“But you call me charming.” Percival finds himself leaning forward. “You sought to distract yourself from me.” And the spell had broken the moment they had both reached completion. Not by dawn, or by death. By love._

_Lancelot looks suddenly old. “Yes. Because there is more, Percival. More that you don’t know. I cannot deny that your feelings are genuine – ”_

_“As are your own!” Percival interrupts._

_An impatient gesture from Lancelot brushes that aside as if it were a mere trifle. “My feelings may not matter,” he says heavily. “I may not be free to act upon them.”_

_Percival’s heart turns over in his chest. A moment later, as if in sympathy, his stomach does likewise. “You have another?” he guesses. But no – it cannot be. If Lancelot had an_ eromenos _already, he would hardly be able to keep it secret from his squire. And Lancelot has already said he is not a marrying man. As if that would even matter._

_“I do not,” Lancelot agrees. “But I may be destined for a different path. A religious calling.”_

_“But why would you choose a religious calling?” Percival asks, bewildered. “You love me. You cannot deny it now, the spell breaking is proof positive – were I a lady, we’d have been married last night, according to the ancient laws! So why – ”_

_A rapping on the door interrupts them. Percival wants to scream. Lancelot waves at him to stay seated, and rises to answer the door himself._

_Lamorak stands on the other side of the door. “His Majesty’s regards, and you are to join him in the Chamber of the Table at once,” he says. He waits for Lancelot’s nod, jerks a bow, and fairly runs down the corridor and out of sight._

_Lancelot stands in the doorway for a moment longer, looking drawn and old. “We will discuss this later,” he says at length, drawing undesirable echoes from the evening he had tried to give Percival his father’s sword. “I will need my baldric.”_

_Percival stands. It’s easier than it should be, with the hangover, but harder than it should be, all the same. “I am coming with you,” he says._

_For once, Lancelot doesn’t argue._

* * *

_The Chamber of the Table is square, but the focus of the room, the table itself, is round, and at it Arthur sits. To his right is Galahad. Some trick of the torches makes it seem almost as if a halo hovers above Galahad’s blond locks. Percival blinks several times at the knight, but the illusion persists._

_The rest of the table is filling as knights enter the room. About half have brought their squires with them; Percival blends in as he takes up station behind Lancelot’s chair. Usually conclaves of the Table are held in privacy, only the knights attending. But usually such conclaves are not called by a running squire banging on doors. It had not occurred to Percival before, with the momentous revelation of Lancelot’s true feelings before him, but it occurs to him now: they must be preparing to ride to battle._

_But Arthur, far from looking grim, looks almost joyous. That’s odd. The King has never shied from war, but he has never loved it, either. He loves his country and his people, his wife and his_ eromenos _. Not battle. Not the blade. For that, his people love him, too._

_Arthur raises a hand as soon as the last knight – Bors – has taken his seat, and all attention in the room fixes on him. Conversation doesn’t cease for the simple reason that there had_ been _no conversation. The room had been silent, and remains so. Arthur gestures to Galahad, who rises._

_“I have been given a vision,” Galahad says. “I have beheld the Holy Grail.”_

_Now there is sound: gasps, cries of shock, a few murmured words of prayer. Lancelot does not speak. But he stiffens, and leans forward as if stung._

_“Galahad has shared the contents of the vision with me,” Arthur says. “We have taken the counsel of the wise, not least my advisor Merlin.” The wizard, leaning against a column behind Arthur’s chair, nods affirmation. “We believe that this vision is a calling. That Galahad, and some others among us, have been chosen to find the Grail and bring it among us again.”_

_Another round of murmuring breaks out. Bors speaks loudest, and his voice cuts across the hubbub. “Who will be chosen to go?” he asks._

_“In the vision, the keeper of the Grail spoke to me,” Galahad says. “She said that there were others among us who had been granted visions, and those knights should accompany me on my quest.”_

_“I regret to say,” Arthur adds sorrowfully, “that I am not among those so blessed.”_

_“I do not call it a blessing,” Lancelot says into the silence that follows, “but I, too, have seen the Grail in my dreams.”_

_Percival keeps the squeak between his lips, but his eyes widen anyway. A religious calling, Lancelot had said. Why, but if this is what he means, then… in a dream, Lancelot had said. Could it be…_

_Galahad looks at him. “Did you see the keeper?”_

_Lancelot shakes his head. “I saw the grail, as I suspect you have seen it, a plain cup, but ringed with light, and sitting on a table richly appointed,” he says. Galahad nods confirmation. Lancelot continues, “It was visible through the window of a tall tower, with no windows or doors around it.”_

_“Where was this tower?” Galahad asks eagerly. “I saw only the room itself, with the table and the keeper. She told me that others’ visions would lead me there.”_

_“I saw only the tower,” Lancelot says. “Nothing beyond it.”_

_“Then there must be another,” Arthur says. “At least one more, who saw beyond the tower. Who among you has seen it? Speak now.”_

_The knights all look at each other. Percival squirms. He’s certain… he’s almost certain… but if he’s wrong…_

_Bors speaks. “Until this moment I have never known that my dreams were more than dreams, but... I saw a long white road leading out of Camelot, down through many windings to a great river, the name of which I could not tell. A boat waited there, and on its sails was the grail painted, just as you have described it. But as the rest, I do not know.”_

_“That is a start,” Galahad says. “We can begin to travel that route, and mayhap the rest will be revealed to us…”_

_“You saw no tower?” Arthur asked Bors, who shook his head silently. “And none among you have seen any tower?”_

_“I have,” Percival says._

_Every eye turns to him. In his chair, Lancelot twists, and shock paints his face. It’s he who demands, “You have?”_

_“Like Sir Bors, I thought it only a dream,” he tries to explain. “I’ve had it all my life. It never… I saw a boat. Just exactly like Sir Bors describes. It takes me down the river, and through a place so shrouded with mist I could no longer see the shore. But then there is a gap in the mist, and when I have passed through it, I behold there the tower of which Sir Lancelot have spoken.”_

_“You,” Lancelot breathes. “_ You _have had this vision.”_

_“I know I am unworthy,” Percival falters. “But…”_

_“If you have seen this, then you are worthy,” Galahad says in a tone that brooks no dissent. He looks at Arthur, who nods._

_Lancelot is still staring at Percival. Percival looks at him, too. “A religious calling,” he says. “But not, perhaps, one that need separate you from all you love?”_

_Tears suddenly fill Lancelot’s eyes. He bows his head. “I have been so blind,” he says. “My love, forgive me.”_

_Any stir this declaration might cause is lost in the broader movement as Arthur rises and his knights, perforce, do likewise. “Percival, squire to Lancelot, come forward,” the King orders._

_Percival looks up, wondering. He does so._

_“Have you a sword?” the King asks._

_“Yes,” Lancelot answers for him. From his waist he unbuckles the one he had carried. The one his father had carried. Lancelot comes forward and presents the sword to Arthur, who nods and takes it._

_To Percival, he says: “Kneel.”_

But I haven’t taken the Trial, _Percival thinks wildly._ I haven’t proved myself worthy, I haven’t –

_Lancelot looks at him, face still wet with tears. “My squire, no one could be more worthy,” he says._

_Arthur waits, firm but kind. Slowly Percival sinks to his knees. Arthur whips the blade around, the flat stinging his shoulders once, twice, and a third time on the crown of his head._

_“Rise, Sir Percival, Knight of the Holy Grail,” the King says. “And may God speed you and your companions on your quest.”_

* * *

_The Quest – the Quest is indescribable. It is long, yet short; difficult, yet the easiest thing in the world. Faith alone permits their success. Faith, and hard work, and perseverance. The Quest is a contradiction and a riddle. Merlin might be able to make sense of the tale they will have to tell. Few others, Percival thinks, will be able to. He himself can barely hold it all in his mind, sometimes._

_His fellow knights share his travails, though to varying degrees. Galahad, who alone among them had been able at last to grasp the cup of Christ and raise it in his hands, seems to be doing the best at it. Bors, whose strong arm had been their shield even after he had led them to the boat and his part in the vision had been concluded, seems least affected – but sometimes fails to recall events that the other three of them know perfectly. Percival wonders if this forgetfulness is natural. If they will all, eventually, lose the memory of finding the Holy Grail._

_Galahad rides apart from them a little, even now. The grail, which had suffered him to lift it in trembling hands from the keeper’s table, now reposes in a pouch custom-made for the purpose and hanging on a thong from Galahad’s neck. None of them have dared touch it since then. Galahad carries it, and heavy indeed it seems, bowing his shoulders and dulling the shine of his skin. He intends to touch it only once more, when he takes it from the pouch to set at the center of the Round Table. Then, Percival privately hopes, Galahad’s burden will be lifted._

_Galahad has other burdens that Percival does not share. Five years they have been gone, and Galahad must miss their King with an ardor far beyond that of any merely loyal knight. Percival, at least, has been blessed. His lover has come on this journey with him._

_Lancelot rides beside him. The passing of time and travails of the journey have touched him comparatively little, or perhaps that is merely the partiality of a lover’s eyes. But where Lancelot had once seemed impossibly tall and mature and wise to a squire’s eyes, now Percival sees him as young and merry and almost carefree. Percival has learned far more than the touch of Lancelot’s hands and the taste of his lips. The shared experience of the Quest has drawn them together more intimately than any marriage vow could have. The old roles of squire and master had in theory been left behind at Camelot’s door, but as with all things, habits had lingered; the beginning of their journey had been fraught with their history, and though they had both desperately desired a new beginning, making that a reality had proven harder than it had seemed. But day had turned to night and day again a dozen dozen times over as they had journeyed down Bors’ white road. They had fought bandits and slayed fiends along that road. And, too, they had cooked meals and darned socks and fought over blankets when they first began to share a bedroll. Lancelot had told Percival of the dreams he had had and the fears that had prevented him from opening his heart sooner. Percival had confided his own hopes for the future and spoken more of the wound of his father’s loss than he had ever told another soul. By the time they had bathed together at last in the waters of the holy river, they had emerged new-made, lovers and partners in every sense._

_And now, with the grail to bear them vanguard, they are returning home to Camelot._

_Bors sees their destination first. He points and calls back to them gladly, and gladly they all urge their weary horses to one final effort. The last hill is crested and the village comes into view. They ride through it, as the villagers look up in surprise, seeing tabards and crests that have been gone these many years._

_The castle doors swing open as they approach. Arthur himself, no doubt told of their approach by the sentries, comes running through the door. Percival hangs back, as do Lancelot and Bors. It’s Galahad who rides forward those last few steps and slides from his saddle straight into the King’s waiting arms._

_Percival averts his eyes politely from their reunion and sees more figures emerge from the shadows of the doorway. Merlin, of course, looking as austere and fey as ever. Guinevere, still beautiful, but with a shadowed sorrow around her eyes. And no nurse comes behind her, no royal children in her wake. Only another woman, perhaps a lady-in-waiting, older but still unmistakably noble. There is something about her face that reminds Percival of Arthur, the shape of the nose and cheeks._

_“Welcome, all of you,” Arthur says, breaking free of Galahad enough to greet the rest of them. “Your return is most welcome. And your news?”_

_“My lord,” Galahad says simply. He lays a hand over his heart, where the pouch rests. “We have found what we had gone to seek.”_

_Arthur’s eyes shine. Guinevere takes a step forward, perhaps involuntarily, and knots her hands together in front of her waist. Might the Grail…? Who can say what end there might be to its miracles?_

_The other woman, though – something burns in her eyes. Something calculated. Percival mislikes her, instinctively._

_“Come in, all of you,” Arthur says eagerly. “We were in council already, the rest of the Table is waiting. Guinevere, Morgana, you come as well.” By this Percival deduces the older lady’s name. “The four of you, come. We shall hear your tale together.”_

_Guinevere takes another step forward, one hand already half-reaching for Arthur. Arthur doesn’t even notice her. He has his arm wrapped around Galahad’s waist and is urging him inside, out of the sun. Guinevere’s hand drops, and she looks furious._

_“My Queen,” Lancelot says, stepping hastily forward and offering his own arm. “Perhaps you would allow your humble servant the honor?”_

_Guinevere, still staring angrily at Arthur’s back, startles. She looks up at Lancelot, and a new look crosses her face. Percival likes it even less than he had liked the look of anger before. The smile that curves her lips is one Percival has never seen on the gentle Queen’s face before. It looks alien there, malicious and calculating. Movement catches his eye, and he turns to see the older woman – Morgana – looking at Guinevere with the same cruel smile upon her face. On Morgana, it looks natural indeed._

_Lancelot is too good-hearted to see any of this. He sees only that Guinevere seems pleased, that he has smoothed over the small contretemps and restored harmony. Guinevere deigns to lay her hand on Lancelot’s arm, and Lancelot sweeps her courteously into the keep._

_Gathering squires have already taken the reins of Lancelot and Galahad’s horses. Bors dismounts as well and heads inside without glancing towards Guinevere’s lady-in-waiting, his usual disdain for social courtesies made even more pronounced by a five years’ absence from courtly duties. Thus it falls to Percival, last among them, to slide off his own horse and turn towards Morgana. He has not felt like the least and youngest for at least four of those five years, but he feels it now, with Galahad and Lancelot and Bors gone ahead._

_But duty is duty, and Percival will always face duty head-on. He offers Morgana a bow and says, “Lady, will you grace my arm?”_

_Morgana comes close and lays her fingertips on his offered forearm. “Why, thank you, sir Knight,” she says sweetly. “I won’t forget your kindness.”_

_“Percival, my lady,” he says. “I am called Percival.”_

_“A fine name,” she says. “Come, we will fall behind.” Her smile thins slightly. “I dislike falling behind. Don’t you?”_

_A thousand thoughts rush through his head, a thousand meanings to a simple sentence. Percival confines himself to the simplest: “I have often been last,” he says, “but the progress of others does not preclude my own achievements.”_

_“I agree with you completely,” Morgana says. She urges him forward. “Come,” she says again._

_Obedient to the principles of chivalry, Percival escorts Morgana back into Camelot._


	13. Chapter 13

“You’re certain Eggsy will take the bait?”

Harry nods, slow and heavy. “Oh, yes, old friend. I’m certain.” It’s easy to recall the memory of Eggsy alight with passion, insisting that he’d track down his father’s killer. “He would go after Morgana even if he won the knighthood, I think. When he loses it, the need to prove himself will make it inevitable.” He takes another drink from the glass in his hand. “And now, if you’d leave me, I think I’d like to empty this bottle.”

“No you don’t,” Merlin says firmly, taking the decanter from the table where Harry had placed it nicely within reach. Merlin looks around Harry’s office, apparently searching for a good spot. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he levitates the decanter to atop the bookshelf. “There. When ye’re sober enough to climb atop yer desk chair and get it back without dumping yerself on yer arse, ye may have it back.”

“Merlin,” Harry whines. “That’s not fair.”

“Get yerself together, man,” Merlin says. “Aye, ye did a dishonorable thing to Galahad, but it’s for the greater good. He’ll forgive ye.”

“Will I forgive myself?”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Merlin says heartlessly. “Assuming ye still care. Ye haven’t even asked me if I arranged to rig the final test.”

“Ah.” Harry rolls his head around his neck once, hearing a satisfying crack, and then does his best to focus his bleary gaze on Merlin. “Did you arrange to rig the final test?”

“Aye. Chester took right to the notion – even shared some views of his, unprompted, on the fitness of commoners to join our ranks.” Merlin looks disgusted. “He’s a cockroach, but it works to our advantage this time. The chairs for Eggsy’s test will be placed directly in front of the fireplace. That close, even a blank will kill. And Eggsy knows it.”

“You’ll have made sure of that.” It’s not a question; Merlin is the range instructor. He’ll have overseen the candidates’ training with all firearms. The ability to tell a blank from a bullet will have been part of that training, as well as knowledge on how to use even a blank to deliver maximum damage.

“The chairs in Roxanne’s room will be in the center of the rug, as usual.” Left unstated: having received the same training as Eggsy, Roxanne will have no difficulty realizing that the weapon she holds, at the distance she will be sitting, will have no harmful effects on her dog. She will not hesitate to fire. She will become Lancelot.

“Percival will be so proud,” Harry mutters.

“He’ll be glad not to be lost forever, anyway,” Merlin says acerbically. “Ye can ask him his opinion of the rest when ye meet him in Avalon.”

Harry has no answer to this. He falls back on annoyance. “If the test is successfully rigged, then why are you interrupting my drinking?”

“Because, fool, when Eggsy fails the test, he will seek ye out. So either sober up or go drink _elsewhere_. And I strongly suggest the former. One final push – ”

“You can’t be serious,” Harry says, appalled. “You want me to – ”

There’s a knock on the door. Harry almost starts out of his seat. Merlin looks at his watch and frowns. “The test isn’t until noon.”

Harry seeks out the clock on his wall and nearly sags in relief. It still wants a quarter of an hour to noon. It can’t be Eggsy coming after the test. Unless – “Is he coming for moral support beforehand?”

Merlin shakes his head. “It’s not him. As ye’d know if ye weren’t drunk.” He taps the side of his head significantly, then turns to open the door.

Harry doesn’t have the chance to tell Merlin that his usual ability to sense the other knights doesn’t work properly with Galahad; the effect of Eggsy’s not remembering, probably, though Merlin doesn’t seem to have that problem. As it is, Harry’s barely got time enough to sit up straight and try to tug his jacket together as Merlin opens the door and Chester King appears.

“Arthur,” Merlin greets. Harry merely nods. Merlin allows his expression to become one of polite puzzlement, and lets Chester see him check his watch. “Are ye going to meet with the candidates for the final test?”

“On my way there now,” Chester says genially, “and thought I’d save two birds with one stone. Galahad, there’s new intel on the Arnold case. The brochure you spotted in Professor Arnold’s classroom, on Percival’s glasses feed – it’s for an odd kind of religious cult. They have their headquarters in Surrey, of all places.” He shakes his head faintly, as if to say _déclassé, but what do you expect from terrorists?_ “I’m sending you there. The précis should be on your terminal momentarily.” Chester’s lips briefly fold down in a disapproving frown. “I trust you won’t argue with my any further about whose mission this should be.”

Harry bares his teeth in an unfriendly grin. No, he won’t argue; with Percival still in a coma, only alive thanks to Merlin’s magical intervention, there is no one else Harry at the Round Table he trusts with this. “Certainly, _my king_ ,” he says smoothly. Merlin gives him a sharp glance, but Chester doesn’t hear the hidden malice. “I will depart at once.”

“Well, perhaps not quite at once,” Chester says. He’s much less good at hiding his own malice behind a genial exterior. “You’ll want to hear the results of the test, I expect. Your candidate’s in the finals, after all.”

“Of course,” Harry says.

“And on that note, I’d best be off. Galahad – Merlin – ” Chester nods at them each in turn. Then he suits action to words and strides off, dignified and serene in his well-tailored suit.

“Snake,” Harry says shortly, after Merlin has closed the door behind Chester again.

“Ye insult the race of reptiles.” Merlin unships his ever-present clipboard from where he’d had it under his arm and taps at it. “Let’s see what Chester has found, hey?”

The portrait on the wall of Galahad II dissolves, to be replaced with information beamed from Kingsman’s servers. “Well, well,” Harry says, looking at it with distaste. “Christian fundamentalists. As if ecoterrorists weren’t cliché enough.”

“I thought ye liked the classics.”

“I liked them better when they were on a movie screen.” Harry sets the glass down, not without regret, but with resignation. “Surrey. Joy. Will you tell the garage I’ll be needing one of the cars, please?”

“Hold hard,” Merlin says. “Ye’re going?”

Harry blinks. “Of course I’m going,” he says, confused. “It’s Lancelot’s death, and Percival’s, too. They’re mine to avenge. And it’s my mission. Weren’t _you_ the one who told me that I should play nicer with Chester?”

“Are ye drunk, or just thick? Harry, think – Lancelot and Percival were killed by _Morgana_. What do ye think ye’re going to find when ye go here? Galahad is the one – ”

“Galahad will kill Morgana,” Harry agrees. “But he’s got to _get_ to her first. Lancelot got close and she killed him. Percival got close and, through an intermediary, she killed him. Someone has to take out her supporting cast, or history will repeat itself.”

“I still think ye should leave this to Galahad,” Merlin says stubbornly. “I’ll add it to the file on his father’s death, he’ll find it when he goes looking – ”

“Now you’re the one not thinking,” Harry says. “We get one shot at this, Merlin. One. You said it yourself – she _must_ know the spell is breaking down. As soon as she realizes Eggsy is Galahad, she will spare no effort to kill him. She’s very good at killing us, if you haven’t noticed.” Harry shakes his head. “We need to give Galahad the straightest possible shot to her.”

“And if ye die?” Merlin challenges him. “What then? There is no second Camelot without ye, Arthur. Galahad can kill Morgana, but he cannot wield Excalibur.”

“Is that what’s most important?” Harry holds Merlin’s gaze. “Am I a King only, and no longer a man? Can I not say of my beloved, _he is more important to me?_ ”

“No,” Merlin says heartlessly. “That is what kingship is. Ye could have turned aside, that day when the Lady came to ye across the lake. Ye took her blessing. Ye drew the sword from the stone. Ye made yer choices.”

“Before I met him,” Arthur says. “Before Galahad.”

“We make every choice in ignorance of the future, my King.”

Silence stretches. Harry looks away first.

“I’ll add the précis to Lee Unwin’s file,” Merlin says. “Galahad will know how to use the information.” He turns and opens the door again.

Echoing down the hallway comes the sound of a gun. Firing a blank.

Merlin turns back and meets Harry’s eyes.

The Final Trial is over.

* * *

_Galahad’s return from the Quest for the Holy Grail is like the seeing the sun rising again after years trapped in fog. Arthur had missed his beloved with every breath, every beat of his heart. Now that Galahad is here, Arthur can barely peel himself from Galahad’s side. Guinevere is inclined to be sulky, which baffles Arthur. He reminds her that she’s had his undivided attention for five years. Surely, in the generosity of spirit which he knows she possesses, she can understand the emotion of this reunion for Arthur. This appeal to her warm heart must work, for she no longer cavils at the time Arthur spends with Galahad. Instead she is often seen walking the grounds with Morgana, the two with their heads together, whispering. Arthur hopes that he’s seeing another romance blossom. It would be unusual, since Guinevere has not yet produced an heir, but Arthur is not disposed to blame. An_ inamorata _of Guinevere’s own might be just the thing to lift his wife’s spirits and restore peace and tranquility to Camelot._

_Meanwhile Arthur drinks in Galahad like a drunkard quaffs wine. Day after day, night after night, Arthur forgets his cares and responsibilities and loses himself in the pleasure of having his lover beside him again._

_“My conscience begins to prick me,” Galahad says at last, breath still quick from their most recent coupling. He looks like a martyr etched in stained glass, reclined in Arthur’s bed, sheet draped negligently across his waist, one arm thrown over his face. “When was the last time you attended council?”_

_Arthur pretends to think. “When was the day you arrived home?”_

_Galahad laughs. “Nay, indulgent we may have been, but not_ that _indulgent. You at least attended a week gone. Merlin practically dragged you by the short hairs.”_

_“That was the last,” Arthur admits without a trace of shame._

_“That’s ill-done of us.” Galahad sighs. “I have missed you too, my heart, but after all we have responsibilities.”_

_“We were responsible for five years,” Arthur says._

_“And we have been_ irresponsible _for nigh on five weeks.”_

_Arthur sighs. He would like to argue that weeks for years is no fair rate of return, but he had not actually been raised to such wild self-indulgence as he has practiced this last month. “As always, your goodness shames me. We shall resume our duties tonight.”_

_“The council doesn’t meet again until tomorrow,” Galahad says slyly. “Surely we may delay until_ then _, at least.”_

_Arthur laughs in shocked pleasure. “If you say it’s acceptable, who am I to demur?”_

_Galahad lowers the arm covering his face and laughs, too. “The King?”_

_“In this bedroom it is I who am the servant. As well you know.”_

_In days past – before the Quest – Galahad would have demurred. His iron sense of rightness would not have let such a thing pass, even in jest. But the Quest has changed him; he only smiles fondly, and says, “In what way will you serve me, then?”_

_“In this way,” Arthur answers, before crawling into the space between Galahad’s spread legs and bending to take his lover’s cock into his mouth._

_Afterwards, Galahad tells Arthur, haltingly, more of the Quest for the Grail. He has told the core of the story already, many times – to the other knights in council around the Table, in more detail to Arthur and Merlin in private, in brief to the squires and pages at the castle. But he has told the most to Arthur, piece by piece, in quiet moments after intimacy. When he begins speaking it’s abrupt, and often in the middle of the tale. Galahad speaks as if the words must be let out of him, but only when his guard is down. In the gathering darkness of twilight, Arthur strokes his beloved’s hair and listens to him pour out his soul._

_With the questing knights returned, and the cup of Christ among them again, Camelot enters a time of peace so profound that even the wise among them shake their heads and say that nothing in recorded history begins to approach it. Merlin says Arthur has grown in wisdom; certainly those who come to him for judgement leave more often pleased than not. His knights use their skills on jousting and tournaments for lack of true enemies. The Grail sits at the center of the Round Table and pours its radiance over Britannia. Schools are founded, churches built, and fiends seem banished from the land. As travel becomes safe, merchants journey farther and wider. Prosperity follows from safety as the day follows from the night. No one goes hungry. No one wants for anything. Not anymore._

_Or so Arthur lets himself believe._

* * *

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Eggsy says over and over again. “I’m so sorry. I let you down. I let my father down, I let – ” he lets out a low cry and buries his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Merlin had vacated Harry’s office as soon as they’d both heard the shot, and none too soon. Eggsy had appeared almost hard on his heels. He hadn’t seemed to notice the retreating wizard-turned-quartermaster, though. He’s had no eyes for anyone but Harry, and those eyes themselves are welling up no matter how many times Eggsy swipes at them with shaking hands. Eggsy sinks into the same chair Merlin has used so often, watching Harry with a heart-wrenching mixture of dismay and hope. As if, despite everything, he thinks Harry might still be able to sort it out.

Eggsy’s not even wrong. Harry _could_ do something. He could have Chester King’s body quietly dropped in the Thames by evening, himself crowned Arthur first thing in the morning, and Eggsy installed as Galahad in time for afternoon tea. Or, less melodramatically, he could have _not_ rigged Eggsy’s final test for failure. An ounce of prevention, and all that.

Harry sits there, stern, and watches Eggsy uncompromisingly.

Under that look, Eggsy wilts further. “I couldn’t do it,” Eggsy sobs. “I couldn’t hurt JB – Harry, you have to understand, he – JB loves me – he _trusts_ me. How could I hurt someone who loves and trusts me?”

He couldn’t, of course. Galahad never could. No matter if doing so has destroyed his own chances at a better life. Galahad had always been the best of them. The only one who had been worthy to hold the Grail, though it had taken four of them to complete the quest of finding it. Galahad had borne it back over the river to pour its radiance over Camelot.

And then Guinevere had destroyed it. Mad with grief, believing that Galahad’s return spelled the end of any chance she might have to bear Camelot’s heirs, to claim a place at Arthur’s court that would be hers by right and not by sufferance. Furious at being relegated from the position of primacy in Arthur’s heart she had lied to herself about holding during those five years Galahad had been gone seeking the Grail. She had taken up the Grail herself, hoping to be purified thereby, and it had fled from her and left the world of men again for a time. Balked of that path, Guinevere had turned down another. A darker. One on which Morgana had proven only too able a guide.

Harry’s fault. Arthur’s fault. How had he never seen Guinevere’s jealousy? Her belief that Arthur could not be shared, that _eromenos_ and wife must always be in competition for the limited resource of Arthur’s affection? How had he been blind to Morgana’s true character, to the snakes he had been harboring within his own bosom? And yet just so he had been – blind, and foolish, and good-hearted, believing in the best of everyone, naively thinking that everyone would be as honorable as his Galahad.

Ironic, then, that all these centuries later, Harry should have become the snake. He sits here in his office watching Eggsy cry. Lying to him, manipulating his strengths, so that Eggsy will slay Morgana at his direction. Never understanding why until later. Hoping that the ends will justify the means. Listening to a wizard speak promises of Harry’s own sublime importance, that he should endanger those he loves while questing for what he desires.

No more.

Harry stands up abruptly. Eggsy lifts his face from his hands, startled. He’s still weeping softly; tears streak his cheeks, which are reddened from rubbing, and his lips are cracked and raw from the violence of his heaving breaths. He’s beautiful. He’s the only good thing left in Arthur’s life, after the mistakes of Camelot. Arthur refuses to let those same mistakes destroy what little good remains.

“Stay here,” Harry says. He picks up his Kingsman phone and slips it into his pocket. Synced with his terminal, it will have all of the information Chester King had gathered from Percival’s glasses feed. Including the location of a headquarters in Surrey where a terrorist group – or perhaps even Morgana – might be found.

“Where are you going?” Eggsy stutters.

“I have a mission to take care of. You are not to leave the mansion.”

“But I – I failed, Harry – they won’t let me stay!”

“Merlin won’t let them throw you out. Tell him that’s a direct order. If Chester King objects, kill him and dump his body in the Thames.”

Eggsy gawps at him. “Is that – Harry, this is no time for fucking jokes!”

“Do I look like I’m fucking joking? Stay in the mansion.” Harry comes around his desk, buttoning his coat and patting his pocket to make sure his weapon is where it ought to be. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob and gives Eggsy a reassuring look. “I’ll sort this out when I get back.”

“Harry!” Eggsy cries, half-rising from his seat, one hand stretched out in appeal.

Harry, for once, doesn’t look back.


	14. Chapter 14

Eggsy is standing in Merlin’s office, stammering out an explanation and trying not to bend beneath the force of the quartermaster’s stare, when the world comes to an abrupt and painful end.

He cries out, not voluntarily, and goes to his knees. His vision goes black. There’s a ringing in his ears, and for a moment every nerve ending in his body goes numb.

_Flash-bang_ is Eggsy’s first thought. He drops and rolls, blind, towards the workbench he knows is against the wall of Merlin’s office. He collides with something soft and cries out again, thrashing at his assailant.

“… _still_ , damn yer eyes,” Merlin is shouting. Eggsy’s hearing is still fading in and out like an old analog radio wavering between stations, but he turns towards the familiar voice, catching at it like a lifeline. “I swear to all the gods that ever were, if ye elbow me one more time I’ll turn ye into a toad – ”

A _toad_? Can he _do_ that? A vague instinct insists that yes, Merlin could do that. Eggsy had had no idea that that particular bit of science fiction had become science fact, but he doesn’t want to risk it. And if Merlin has time to shout threats, there must be no _real_ threat, flash-bang or no flash-bang. Maybe one of the apprentices had set off an experiment badly. Harry had told him once about the time a junior scientist had accidentally mishandled the timer on a new kind of chemical bomb and roofied the entire biochemistry division…

_Harry_. Something yawning and black opens up in Eggsy’s stomach. He doubles over, and as his vision swims back into focus he realizes he’s crying. Not a little, either. He’s full on ugly-sobbing into his knees, curled up tight in the fetal position bawling his eyes out. His heart feels like it’s tearing itself into pieces. And he doesn’t even know _why_.

“There, there,” Merlin says helplessly. He’s got an arm around Eggsy’s shoulders and is patting them awkwardly. “I know. I know.”

“You do?” Eggsy gasps out between sobs. “Merlin, what the _fuck_ is going on?” First the awful visions, and now –

“It’s Harry,” Merlin says. “What we just felt was – what?” The arm falls away. Eggsy blinks his eyes clear again in time to see Merlin shoot to his feet and stare incredulously at the corner. Eggsy turns to see the door to Merlin’s office fly open and Roxy appear.

Or – Eggsy squints. The tears still blurring his eyes are playing tricks on him, adding colors and halos where there shouldn’t be any. Roxy looks like she’s glowing, and she’s wearing some kind of dress, which, weird, she hadn’t even worn a dress when they’d done the honeypot –

“And when were ye going to _tell_ me,” Merlin starts sputtering.

“Do you want to argue with me or do you want to save your King?” Roxy snaps back. Eggsy’s hearing is playing up, too: her voice sounds oddly resonant in his ears. Roxy says, “Come on, you fool!” She spins on her heel and flees. Merlin swears, but follows her.

Eggsy is left sitting, bewildered, on the floor of Merlin’s office. He tries to gather his wits, but it’s one blow too many. This morning he’d woken up in the spare bed at Harry’s house, full of fire and vim and dreams. He would become a Kingsman, avenge his father’s death, and win Harry’s admiration with his skill and eventually Harry’s love with tender, devoted attentions. Then they’d live happily ever after, two gentlemen spies with their adopted dogs and their eternal banter and their sarcastic, tetchy best friends (Eggsy hadn’t been quite sure how he’ll manage to keep Roxy as a friend after he wins the knighthood out from under her, but there must be a way – a second knighthood, something). It had been going to be perfect.

Then Chester King had handed Eggsy a gun and told him to shoot JB. With a blank yes, but at point-blank range. And it had all gone to pot.

Stumbling back to Harry’s office afterwards, Eggsy hadn’t been quite sure what he’d expected. If Harry had smacked him around same as Dean had always done, told him to get out of his sight and never come back, called him the worst disappointment in the world, Eggsy wouldn’t even have been surprised. Or maybe he would have – but only because he’d made the cardinal mistake of thinking the world could be different than it is. 

 It had hardly mattered. Harry hadn’t been angry. Just obviously, bitterly disappointed, in a way that had cut to Eggsy’s bones. Eggsy would rather have been beaten up by every one of Dean’s thugs and then Dean himself than seen the look on Harry’s face when Harry had said, _I’ll sort this out when I get back._

How long might Eggsy have sat there in Harry’s office afterwards, lost in his own misery and pain? It’s hard to know. He’d certainly been on his way to a good long wallow. But he’d spent enough time with Kingsman, living and breathing every scrap of information, that he’d jerked straight back into hyperawareness when the terminal on Harry’s desk had _ping_ ed.

Eggsy probably ought to have ignored it. But what if it had been Harry, calling back to speak to him? What if there had been something Harry had wanted, or even needed, Eggsy to do? The mere thought had been enough to wipe away any of Eggsy’s scruples. He’d scrambled to his feet and gone round behind Harry’s desk, touching the terminal’s screen to wake it up. And the screen _had_ woken up. Eggsy’s palm print had still been in the system. Which may have meant that there had still been some hope for Eggsy after all.

But what Eggsy had seen –

 

_Eggsy turns on the terminal, and immediately a video window snaps to full screen. The timestamp scrolling along the bottom of the feed tells him it’s live. The name at the top tells him it’s Harry’s glasses he’s watching – though that much Eggsy had more or less expected._

_There’s image stabilization built into these feeds, and Eggsy is grateful for that, feeling queasy despite the technology as Harry jogs up several flights of stairs. There’s a building looming ahead of him, and Eggsy pegs it as a church immediately: he’s never had much time to get religious, but there’s an unmistakably ecclesiastic air to the architecture nonetheless. A moment later a sign hovers into view. Harry’s gaze lingers on it for a moment, as if confirming that he’s in the right pace, and Eggsy reads the name on the sign. St. Gladys Methodist Church._

_Harry’s gaze swings back to the double doors, and he enters._

 

**_The doors creak open ponderously, and no wonder, heavy stone as they are. Though when they’d been hung, Arthur had told him, they’d been so well-balanced that even a child’s touch could move them. Perhaps that had still been so, before Galahad had left on the Quest. But much has changed in his absence. More, he fears, has he changed himself._ **

**_Arthur’s smile remains the same. He draws comfort from that._ **

 

_Eggsy shakes his head, blinking away the image. The doors had looked different, for a second – but no, they’re just wooden doors. Harry is well inside them now. The interior is laid out with pews down each side, angled to face a central pulpit. The service appears to already be underway. Harry slips into an empty seat and turns his face towards the preacher._

_There’s something wrong here; something that makes the skin crawl on the back of Eggsy’s neck. This isn’t the way a church should be. There’s a darkness here, a poison he hasn’t felt since…_

**_He climbs the stairs steadily. He’s going to the top of the tower. He’s not certain why, but he must._ **

**_At the top there is a door. He opens the door. Inside is a woman. No. Two women._ **

**_“You’ve come,” one of them says, radiant and ecstatic. “I didn’t think you’d really come.”_ **

**_“I told you he would,” the second woman says, smug. “Don’t you see, my dear Guinevere, the virtues of taking power for oneself?”_ **

**_The second woman’s smile makes his skin crawl._ **

****

_Eggsy clutches his chest, gasping. Something is wrong. The hateful words of the preacher reach through Harry’s glasses to bombard his ears, but in his mind’s eye he sees the woman again, short and dark-haired, full-hipped, shouting at him. Hateful imprecations, vile – just like Dean._ If you want to whore yourself out I’ve got a spot for you on Smith Street, _Dean would roar, and the woman in his mind is screaming,_ It’s your fault he won’t touch me, he loved me before you came along –

 

**_“Do you want to spend your time screaming or do you want revenge?” the first woman says impatiently. “I showed you what to do.”_ **

**_The second woman – Guinevere – falls silent at last. She nods. “Take off your shirt,” she orders him._ **

**_He obeys. That is wrong. He should not –_ **

**_Soft hands, female hands, lift something from around his neck. A pouch. “This will do?” Guinevere asks._ **

**_The other woman nods. “They all handled it,” she says. “All of your enemies. This Galahad, who takes the affection from your husband that should be yours. Lancelot, who rebuffed your attempts to seek happiness elsewhere. Percival, for whom Lancelot rejected you.”_ **

**_“And that other knight – Bors?”_ **

**_“No.” The woman shakes her head. “He never handled it, for some reason. But you don’t care about him.”_ **

**_“I care about Arthur.” Guinevere looks uncertain. “He held it as well, when they brought the Grail back.”_ **

**_“Fear not,” the other woman says soothingly. “He was not on the Quest. He will not be affected.”_ **

**_That’s not right either. Something is stirring in the back of Galahad’s mind, straining. The other woman – her name – Morgana. Her name is Morgana. And she is the source of the wrong feeling. She is –_ **

**_Morgana offers Guinevere a knife. “They have wronged you so terribly,” she says, eyes flashing. “They thought you had no means of taking revenge. Show them how wrong they are, Guinevere.”_ **

**_Guinevere takes the knife, though her hands are trembling. “They thought I was weak,” she says._ **

**_“Yes,” Morgana urges._ **

**_“They thought I was inconsequential!”_ **

**_“They did!”_ **

**_“They thought I was like – like a piece of pottery! There to sit on a shelf and look pretty, when they cared to look at me, and left alone in the dark when they didn’t – ”_ **

**_“Yes!” Morgana cries._ **

**_“They thought I was_ ** **nothing _,” Guinevere hisses. “So I will make_ them _nothing.”_**

**_Morgana’s voice sinks to a low whisper. “Yes.”_ **

**_Guinevere casts the pouch she had taken from him – from_ ** **Galahad _– down on a small table. She holds her left hand over it. With her right she wields the blade._**

****

_On the feed, Harry gets up from the pew. He slides down to the end, clearly planning to leave. The woman who had been sitting next to him stands up, too. She had been flaxen-haired, tall, slender. Eggsy sees her out of the corner of Harry’s eyes. Harry himself isn’t paying her any attention. Not until he steps out of the church and turns around suddenly, to see her standing there behind him._

_She has blades for legs._

**_Guinevere digs the tip of the knife into the meat of her palm. It’s the barest nick, and produces only a drop of blood. Nothing noticeable happens. Guinevere frowns and looks questioningly at Morgana._ **

**_“You must cut deeper than that,” Morgana urges. “The more blood, the more power. Do you think Merlin hasn’t put protections on them all? You must overcome him.”_ **

**_Guinevere nods and takes a firmer grip on the knife. This time she draws it sideways across her hand, making a shallow cut. A few drops of blood well up. Pressure begins to build up in the air._ **

**_“More!” Morgana urges._ **

**_“I can feel it!” Guinevere cries in excitement. She slashes recklessly with the knife. Blood wells up, much more blood, enough to pool in her palm and begin to drip down her fingers. The pressure builds, builds – it drives Galahad to his knees. Something beyond the range of human hearing shrieks past his ears._ **

**_“It’s still not enough!” Morgana snarls. The foundations of the tower seem to creak, but she looks almost wild with frustration and fury._ **

**_Guinevere can feel it, too. “Morgana, what do we do?”_ **

**_Morgana draws a blade of her own. “I didn’t plan to do it this way,” she says to herself, “but needs must.”_ **

**_“Morgana? What – aaaa!” Guinevere screams when Morgana seizes her hair. Then her scream cuts off abruptly, becoming a dreadful gurgle, as Morgana draws the blade across her throat._ **

**_Guinevere collapses, her wide eyes staring accusingly at the other woman. Morgana tightens her grip in Guinevere’s hair, holding her up over the table as her life’s blood spills out. “I really do appreciate everything you’ve done to get me this far,” she says to the dying woman. “I could never have gotten this close to Arthur so quickly without you. Thank you, my dear. And now rest. Soon your beloved king will join you in the land of the dead.”_ **

**_Guinevere’s eyes bulge, but then turn glassy. The pressure builds to a fever pitch. There’s a sound like a large, overripe melon bursting in the heat of the sun –_ **

****

_Harry takes a step back, then another, eyes fixed on the woman who had followed him out of the church. Her body seems to deform, melting like a candle in the sun. The legs remain, bladed and deadly, but the rest of her transforms. She becomes shorter. Wider-hipped. The blonde of her hair darkens. She looks Harry dead in the eyes, and through him, dead into Eggsy’s._

_“At last,” she says. “Time to finish it.”_

_Morgana draws the blade she had used to kill Guinevere. And smiles, triumphant._

Eggsy shoves to his feet, terrified and desperate. She’ll kill him. Eggsy knows it in his bones. That woman is going to try to kill Harry, and what’s worse, Eggsy is convinced she’s going to succeed. Unless –

Eggsy had fled then, blindly running down the corridors of the Kingsman mansion towards the one person his instincts said could help. Eggsy runs for Merlin. Bursts into his office, in violation of every rule and dictum and unspoken order, and stands there stammering out what he’s seen, trembling under the death glare of Merlin’s wrath until the same awful pressure from Eggsy’s visions strikes him again and drives him to his knees.

Crouched trembling in Merlin’s office an eternity later, Eggsy scrubs at his face and climbs unsteadily to his feet. Merlin had said he’d known what’s going on. Had been about to explain, before Roxy had interrupted. And the way Roxy had spoken to Merlin, and Merlin had followed her, suggests that she, too, might be able to shed light on this situation. Because what Eggsy had seen –

They’d run towards the south corridor, Eggsy remembers. There’s not much down that way from here. Mostly the medical bay. Medical – _Harry?_ How much time has passed? Could Harry have been injured – could they have brought him in?

For the second time, Eggsy takes off running.

* * *

“Wake up,” Roxy is saying urgently when Eggsy catches up to them. “By rain and wind and driving tide, I command you – _awaken_.”

Eggsy skids to a halt inside the only occupied bay in medical. There’s not a doctor to be seen, nor even a nurse. Roxy is standing over a bed, still dressed in those funny clothes, the air around her still warping. There’s a man in the bed, but it’s not Harry. Eggsy doesn’t know whether to be relieved or despair.

Merlin hovers behind Roxy. She turns her head to look over her shoulder at him and says acerbically, “So that fool of a king tried to go haring off after Morgana himself?”

“Aye,” Merlin says in disgust. “I thought I’d talked him down from it, but – ”

“Stubborn as a mule.”

“He always was.”

“Chester King went after a target himself?” Eggsy says in bafflement.

Roxy and Merlin exchange looks. “Deal with him,” she orders, turning back to the patient on the bed. “Don’t jog my elbow.”

Merlin takes Eggsy by the arm and walks him a few steps away from Roxy and the patient, though not out of the room entirely and definitely not out of sight. “Leave her be, lad. She’s trying to save… them.”

“That’s not Harry,” Eggsy says.

Merlin grimaces. “No, but helping Percival will help Harry. Ye’ll have to trust me on that.”

“Where is Harry?” Eggsy’s voice rises. “He was in that church, and the woman was behind him – ”

“Ye saw her?” Merlin says sharply.

“Merlin, I don’t know _what_ I saw! I saw – I saw – ”

“Who am I?” Merlin demands tersely.

Eggsy gapes at him. “You’re Merlin!”

“Okay, I deserved that,” he mutters. He turns Eggsy to face the other two occupants of the room. “Who are they?”

“Roxy,” Eggsy says, confused. “And – you called him Percival, right? Another agent?” The man looks familiar, actually. Though of course the hospital gown doesn’t help. He ought to be wearing armor, or at least mail –

“Thank the gods,” Merlin sighs. “We’re not done for yet. Eggsy, listen to me. The woman you saw – she’s an old enemy of ours.”

“Of Kingsman’s?” Eggsy looks back at Merlin. “Is that why Chester King went after her?”

“King – oh,” Merlin says, as if he’s realizing something. “Er – well. Arthur went after her, yes.”

“And she killed him,” Eggsy says, putting the pieces together. “So then Harry went after her.”

“She’s the reason Percival is in that bed, too,” Merlin says. “But Eggsy – there’s more. We weren’t sure, but we now believe – ”

The building shakes violently.

“Damn it, I said don’t jog my elbow!” Roxy snaps.

“If ye can’t tell the difference between a live-cast spell and a fixed emplacement being triggered, I’ve no help to offer ye,” Merlin snaps back.

“Turn off the rest, or else – ”

Klaxons sound throughout the building. Merlin swears, slapping at the nearest display. Eggsy is pretty sure that it’s a medical terminal, but somehow Merlin makes it display security feeds from all over the mansion, and what it shows –

“Fuck,” Merlin says concisely.

Roxy swears. “Merlin, I am _this close_ to losing one of them! To have three souls in one mortal shell – ”

“Morgana is invading the complex.”

There’s dead silence, broken only by the distant sound of alarms and the vibration of the building heaving again.

Roxy draws a deep breath. “Then you’d better help me,” she says grimly. “If she starts flinging magic all over the place, it will take both of us to hold on to them.”

“I’ll be right there.” Merlin turns back to Eggsy. “Listen. This is important,” he says. “The woman attacking us – ”

“She was at the church with Harry. She was – ” Eggsy swallows. He’d seen her pull out the blade. And then the feeling of pressure, just like in the vision… “Is Harry dead?”

“Not quite,” Merlin says cryptically.

“Now is not the time to be keeping secrets from me!” Eggsy cries.

“Then ye’d better shut up and let me talk, hadn’t ye?” Merlin snaps. “That woman you saw. Morgana. _She’s the one who killed your father.”_

Everything goes quiet. It’s different from the moment in Merlin’s office. Different, too, from the moment in the tower with the two women that he’d seen in his mind’s eye while watching Harry at the church. There’s no dulling of his senses. Eggsy can still see Merlin perfectly, see him scanning Eggsy’s face to make certain he’s understood. He can hear the klaxons blaring and sway with the building as it vibrates under his feet. He can feel the chill of the medical bay raising the hairs on his skin, and taste the faint traces of antiseptic that hovers perpetually in the air, a different kind of incense for this most modern of cathedrals.

It’s just that none of it matters.

_She’s the one who killed your father_.

And now – perhaps – Harry.

“I have to help the – ” Merlin clicks his tongue impatiently and starts over. “I have to help Roxy. The rest of the facility will be evacuating. But Roxy and I, and Percival, must stay. Eggsy – there are no other knights here. But ye can do it. Ye can defeat her, and save us all.”

“Defeat her,” Eggsy whispers.

Merlin grips his shoulder. “For all of us,” Merlin tells him. “For Harry.”

_For my father,_ Eggsy thinks. _For Harry._ Another part of him answers, _For Arthur._ Now is an odd time to discover that he had cared that much for Chester King – but after all, he had been loyal enough to Kingsman to die for it.

_For everyone,_ Eggsy decides.

“There’s an armory down the hall – second left,” Merlin tells him. “Fully stocked. You know what you’ll find in it?”

“Harry told me.” Eggsy takes a deep breath. “I won’t let him down.”

“Ye never have,” Merlin says.

“Merlin!” Roxy cries, sounding desperate.

Merlin swears and spins, all but running back towards Roxy and the patient.

Eggsy turns away. He catches a brief glimpse of himself in the reflective surfaces of the medical bay and nods. He’s wearing his suit. The suit Harry had had made for him. All the Kingsman bells and whistles – bulletproofing, blast resistance, auto-constricting fabric that will staunch wounds. And something else. Something less tangible, but more precious. The suit also comes imbued with Harry’s faith in Eggsy.

Eggsy takes that for a vote of confidence, and goes to load up at the armory.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter today, wrapping up the main story. The final chapter, which will contain the epilogue, will be posted on Monday instead of Tuesday, that being also the final day of the challenge posting window. Enjoy!

Main power goes out when Eggsy is still in the armory. That’s to be expected; Kingsman has done their best to harden their critical infrastructure, but power lines are still power lines, and if an attacker doesn’t mind killing power to the entire region – say, by blowing up the substation – there’s very little Kingsman can do about that. So naturally, Kingsman is fully equipped with backup power. The first system to come online is the self-generating closed-loop system, powered by solar panels located throughout the grounds. Unfortunately, solar panels are even less defensible than electrical substations. Just as Eggsy comes out of the armory, backup system one gasps and dies.

Backup system two is powered by three generators, buried underneath the mansion. And Kingsman really does mean _buried_ : after being set up, concrete had been poured around them, sealing them in. It means there’s no maintenance possible short of a complete replacement in a new location, and Eggsy had initially been horrified at the thought of exactly how many defunct generators are entombed forever beneath Kingsman HQ. But it also means that there’s no practical way to sabotage those generators. The ghostly, low-voltage emergency lights that flicker on as Eggsy starts down the hallway will remain on until the fuel supply gives out. And given that the fuel supply is a literal underground _lake of petrol_ , that will be a while. Kingsman is prepared for a siege.

It’s Eggsy’s job to make sure this won’t be one.

Happily, his opponents seem to agree. Attackers leap out at him from random hallways, from behind potted plants, and as Eggsy passes the dormitories, from within the freaking laundry chute. It goes without saying that these are _terrible_ hiding places, and so Eggsy is not, in fact, taken by surprise. Almost the opposite. Eggsy seems to see them even before they leap. And then – all that training must pay off, because Eggsy doesn’t even have to think before eliminating the threat. Gaze snaps to the target, arm comes up to be joined by the other in perfect stance, a quick sight, a pulled trigger. A dead body.

They’re not what Eggsy would have expected Kingsman’s attackers to look like. They’re not dressed in any kind of tactical gear; actually, they look like they’ve just come from some fancy cocktail party. What they are wielding for weapons tend to be things that can be easily grabbed, like crowbars or baseball bats. In fact, they look like the kind of people who had been at St. Gladys’ Methodist Church. Which cannot be a coincidence.

“Merlin, are you with me?” Eggsy taps at his glasses. Merlin had said _don’t bother me unless it’s critical,_ but intel on the enemy is _always_ critical. “Are you seeing this?”

The comm piece in his ear crackles to life. “Aye, I’m seeing it,” Merlin acknowledges.

“It’s all wrong,” Eggsy says. “They’re jumping at me out of corridors and swinging at me with baseball bats. Taking them down is too easy.”

“Mind control,” Merlin says bleakly.

“That’s a _thing_?” Movement out of the corner of Eggsy’s eye, and he spins, raises his gun, and fires. This one is a little faster than the others had been, and Eggsy’s shot catches her in the belly instead of the chest. Eggsy winces as the poor bastard falls. Maybe he should –

The attacker – a middle-aged woman in her thirties – staggers back to her feet. Eggsy gapes at her as she stumbles forward, still apparently determined to get to Eggsy. She doesn’t even have a hand pressed to her wound. Any normal human would be on the ground, trying to stop the bleeding, screaming for help. This woman doesn’t even look like she notices it, except that it’s making it harder for her to try to kill Eggsy.

“Bloody _fuck_ ,” Eggsy blurts out, stumbling backwards.

“Just kill her, Eggsy,” Merlin says over the comms. “As ye’re seeing, they won’t stop for anything less than a kill shot.”

Eggsy raises his gun again. Distantly he notices his arm is shaking. That won’t do. He takes a deep breath and focuses. He’s got plenty of time; the woman – the target – is barely managing to stumble forward, catching at the wall for support. He leads her a little for safety’s sake, then puts a bullet through her brain. She falls without a sound. The expression on her face doesn’t even change.

“I don’t like this, Merlin,” Eggsy says. Now his _voice_ is shaking.

“Aye, it’s bad,” Merlin says grimly. “This sort of thing was outlawed a long time ago. But the woman ye’re up against never cared much for rules.”

“And she’s just grabbing people from the streets and mind-controlling them?” Eggsy wants to retch.

“It’s nae quite so easy as that. She’s got a literal cult following. One she’s spent a long, long time accumulating. They take the talisman willingly. Look at their throats, behind their ears.”

Eggsy swallows back the bile in his throat and crouches down over the corpse of the woman he’s just killed. Using the barrel of his gun, he pushes her hair back. “I don’t see anything,” he says. Then – “Wait.” He squints. “I see a scar.”

“That’s it,” Merlin says. “Controlling a lot of people over long distances isn’t trivial, even for someone as skilled as Mor – as Gazelle. But if she can put a piece of herself inside them, it acts like a signal booster.”

“Like a radio receiver.”

“Aye, that’s the theory.”

“Can we block them? Some kind of – of jamming signal?”

There’s a pause. “Maybe,” Merlin says reluctantly. “But I’m not sure I can spare the time.” A heart rate monitor shrieks in the background of the transmission, and Merlin swears. “Got to go,” he says. “Get to Gazelle, Eggsy. It’s – ”

“Merlin? Merlin!” Eggsy taps at the glasses again, but nothing happens. Merlin’s cut comms.

Or the enemy has. Terrifying thought, that. But jamming tech _does_ go both ways.

Slowly Eggsy gets back to his feet, reloading his gun automatically. The woman at his feet is dead; she can’t tell him anything else. It helps to know she hadn’t been innocent.

A low booming sound begins to reverberate through the mansion. Eggsy cocks his head and turns in a slow circle, homing in on the sound. It’s coming from the main access corridor. The one that leads to the knights’ offices and the room with the Square Table.

Eggsy nods to himself, takes a firmer grip on his weapon, and strides towards his goal.

* * *

The lamps in Arthur’s office are lit.

Eggsy stays back, down the hallway and around the corner. He watches the lamplight flicker in the reflection from the picture-frame across from Arthur’s office. It’s polished to a high shine exactly for moments like this.

Even without the lighting, Eggsy thinks he’d know that his quarry is in Arthur’s office. It’s not just that it’s the most logical place to be, one of Kingsman’s hubs, containing a terminal with access to everything Kingsman has to offer. There’s also a creeping unease slithering its way up Eggsy’s spine. The sensation of being watched. Of another human’s presence.

In the reflection, the door opens. A woman appears. The same woman who had followed Harry out of the church, and made him step back in fear.

Gazelle.

“You may as well come in, Galahad,” she calls. “I know you’re there.”

Eggsy’s throat closes in fear, but his heart leaps in sudden hope. She thinks he’s Galahad. Which means she must not have killed Harry at the church after all! That’s good, but –

Eggsy has a split second to make a decision. He makes it, and casts his die.

“Sorry to disappoint you, love,” Eggsy drawls, stepping out from the corner. He deliberately calls up his memories of Harry and imitates them: the way Harry walks, the way Harry talks, the way he cocks his head and raises his eyebrows and looks at the person in front of them as if they’re a bug he’s going to wipe off his window. “It’s just me.”

This doesn’t seem to disappoint Gazelle. “Come on in,” she invites. “I’ve put the kettle on.”

“It’s not your kettle to put on, is it?” Eggsy parries. Gazelle’s gaze goes briefly abstract as she considers this, and Eggsy seizes his moment. Gaze on the target, hands in position –

The gun slides from his grip before his finger can twitch on the trigger. It goes spinning away in the darkness as if someone had thrown it, down the long corridor Eggsy had just traversed. The echo of its falling takes an unusually long time to come back to them.

“Do you want tea or don’t you?” Gazelle turns her back on him and walks back into Arthur’s office.

Eggsy swallows.

“Actually, I’ll pass, ta.” He follows her slowly, working hard to maintain his air of insouciance. “I always got the impression old Chester King never liked me much. Think he might have been planning to poison me next chance he got.”

“You’re probably right,” Gazelle agrees. “After all, he agreed to rig your final test.”

That makes Eggsy stop dead. He stares at her, and then, disbelievingly, looks around the room. It’s the same one he’d been in for the Final Trial. That had been the first time he’d been in it, and he hadn’t questioned the way it had been arranged. But now he sees that the two chairs forming a cozy nook are set well _back_ from the fireplace. Away from where JB had been tied. That far back, a blank could easily have been fired by a skilled gunman in such a way as to cause no harm at all.

“That absolute fucker,” Eggsy says in disbelief.

“Oh, well, you oughtn’t to blame him too much.” Gazelle disdains Arthur’s chair, choosing to perch instead on the edge of Arthur’s desk. She crosses one knee over the other, and the blades that replace her feet flash in the lamplight. “It was Harry Hart’s idea.”

Eggsy gapes at her. And suddenly, horribly, it all makes sense.

Gazelle calling to Galahad. Because she’d believed him to be alive. _Known_ him to be alive. Why kill her ally? And hadn’t Harry seemed a little too calm when Eggsy had told him he’d failed the final test? As if he’d expected it. As if he’d _planned_ it to happen.

“But why?” Eggsy chokes.

“So you’d kill me, of course.” Gazelle makes it sound obvious. “That was his goal all along. He’s wanted me dead for – oh, a very long time, now. He and his friends have been trying. Did you see the one I chopped in half? Very nasty. But people like that, they never give up.” Gazelle sighs, put-on and importuned. “You were their next attempt, my dear. I’m sure he cooked up some quite convincing story about my past transgressions. What is it this time? Let me guess – dead parent?”

Eggsy can’t speak. He’s thinking furiously. Thinking of everything he knows about his father’s death. About Harry. He thinks of the man coming to tell his mother that his father had died. For all of his life, that man’s face has been a blank. Now, all of a sudden, in his mind’s eye, the man looks like Harry.

“It’s a classic,” Gazelle says, nodding. “I killed your father, etc, etc. Well, I’m sorry, young man; it’s simply not true. Harry Hart lied to you. He’s been lying to you this entire time.”

“Why?” Eggsy forces out.

“I just told you, my dear.”

“Not – that. Why are you telling me – all of this? Why not just kill me? Why invite me in for tea?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Gazelle tilts her head, bird-like. “Hart may not have appreciated your true value, but I do. You were able to complete the Kingsman trials and to get this close to me.” She slides off the desk and approaches him, slowly, circling around him. “I see a young man with potential. A young man who is loyal. Who can do as he’s asked, and who wants to do something good with his life.” She smiles at him. “I could use someone like you.”

“Well now,” Eggsy says slowly. “Isn’t that an interesting offer.”

“Why don’t we discuss it further?”

“Yes, why don’t we?” Eggsy makes a show of looking around. Seeming to see the cozy seating nook for the first time, he ambles over to it, selecting the nearest seat – the one he’d been using for the Final Trial – and sitting in it. He motions to the other chair. “Join me?”

Gazelle’s smile widens. She takes her time taking the other chair, pausing first to pick up a cup of gently steaming tea and doctor it to her satisfaction. Sugar added and milk disdained, she carries it over to the small table set up between the chairs before finally settling herself down as well.

Eggsy waits patiently. When Gazelle finally looks up at him with an inquiring expression, he says, “I’d like to know what else Harry lied to me about.”

“Where to even start?” Gazelle takes a sip of her tea and sets it aside, sighing. “His name isn’t Harry Hart.”

Eggsy lets his shock show. “Then what is it?”

“Would you believe Arthur Pendragon?”

“I… might be persuaded to.”

“Soon enough it will all make sense,” she promises. “You know more than you think you do. I’d like to help you understand. Even… remember.”

“There’s a lot I don’t remember,” Eggsy agrees. He puts his hand to his forehead, shakes his head. “The man who told me my father had died… Harry said it was him.”

“Another lie,” Gazelle dismisses.

“He said my father was a Kingsman.”

“Do you even know what Kingsman really is?”

“An organization dedicated to creating a better world.”

“It’s a straightjacket,” Gazelle says venomously. “Created by three self-righteous men with nothing better to do but try to impose _their_ ideals on everyone else. Did you ever ask who they were to decide what made a world _better_ or _worse_?”

“Who are _we_?” Eggsy counters.

“A boy from the estates, and a woman,” she says, leaning forward, intent. “Two people to whom society has never listened. Maybe it’s time they did.”

“I don’t know,” Eggsy says, playing dumb. “Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe we should leave it in the hands of the people who have been running it up till now.”

“Like they’ve done such a grand job?” Gazelle snorts. “All of them born to power, with their places in society assured, never wanting for anything, never worried about what would happen to them if the wrong person died young – ”

“If who dies young?” Eggsy asks, almost out of sheer reflex. That example had struck his ear oddly. It’s too specific. Grandiose proclamations about power and society are one thing, and more or less par for the villainous course, but Bors had taught them to listen for the example that didn’t fit. Eggsy has little doubt that society had fucked Gazelle over in some way. And he also has little doubt that someone dying young had been part of it.

And indeed, Gazelle’s gaze goes sliding sideways. “No one,” she snaps.

“Your father?” Eggsy guesses. Gazelle snorts. No, that wouldn’t be it. He thinks back through what she had said before. A boy from the estates, and a woman… “Your husband.”

Gazelle laughs humorlessly. “I haven’t had a husband for a long time.”

“And it’s been hard,” Eggsy says. “Hasn’t it.”

“I overcame it,” Gazelle says. She springs to her feet and starts pacing, as if the subject is too much to stay still while discussing. “I thrived.”

“But I bet you had to get help from other people.” Eggsy knows this story all too well. “People you’d rather have not have had to turn to, innit? Friends who were into some bad stuff, maybe. Or family who’d never let you live it down.”

“Oh, I lived it down all right,” Gazelle says cruelly. “My brother didn’t outlive it, but _I_ did.”

Eggsy sits back in the chair, letting himself relax. His hand slides off his thigh and down to his slide. His fingers, always quick, slip between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair.

“Mate, we’ve all been there,” he says. Compassion leaks into his voice in spite of himself; he’s not lying to her. “All of us without a silver spoon, we know what that’s like. And I get you. It ain’t fun, swallowing your pride. Makes us spend a lot of time thinking about how we shouldn’t have to do it.”

“Yes!” Gazelle lights up, looking eager. “That’s exactly it!”

“And maybe we get mad at the toffs for setting up the world like this, yeah?” Eggsy uses his chin to point at the portraits on the wall. “Like them as made Kingsman.”

Gazelle turns. The portraits show the founding members of Kingsman – including the founding Arthur, one Henry Reginald Hartsfield. Who, Eggsy has noticed before, looks more than a little like Harry Hart.

Like Eggsy had told Gazelle. He could maybe be persuaded to believe. Especially since Harry and Merlin between them have given him more than enough clues – and that’s before one even starts getting into the weird visions.

But every villain’s got a good story.

Eggsy’s fingers curl around the gun. It’s not in some kind of secret hidden compartment built into the chairs; that would be cool, but it would probably also be something Gazelle – Morgana – would know about, if it were on purpose. This gun is an accident. This is the gun Eggsy had held in his hands a mere few hours ago, when he hadn’t been able to shoot JB. He’d pointed it as his dog, and then, in a fit of pique, pointed it at Chester King. And then he’d stuffed it down in the couch cushions, and left it there.

Chester King, Merlin had told he and Roxy and Charlie once, when he’d been frustrated with their performance on the firing range, is notoriously bad at gun safety. And a snob, too. He’d probably filed a report for some minion to come pick the discarded weapon up. But, of course, no one had had the time.

It’s loaded still. With a blank, granted. But Eggsy knows how to kill with a blank.

Morgana is still ranting, staring up at the face of Henry Reginald Hartsfield. Eggsy feels a stab of guilt wrench his insides. For a wild moment, he wants to call out to her. To give her the chance to see him draw. To give her a chance, period. To see the error of her ways. To repent. To try to make some kind of amends.

_Just kill her, Eggsy,_ Merlin whispers in his ear. _She won’t stop for anything less._

Eggsy sighs. _I know._

He raises the gun and fires.

When the world stops ringing, he stands up, out of respect.

“You know,” he says sadly, “up to a certain point, you aren’t wrong. The world _is_ unfair. To begin with, at least, you were justified in your anger. Up to a certain point, your efforts to alter the course of history might have been forgiven. Even… noble.”

Morgana has slumped down on the ground. He had aimed for her temple, and hit true. There had been no bullet, but the slug of compressed air had broken a piece of her skull loose and sent it hurtling into her brain. He doesn’t even know if she can hear him. She’s still breathing, but that could be autonomic, her body not yet realizing it’s dead. Or she could have up to seven minutes of consciousness left, before the blood flow ceases to her brain.

He squats down to her level, keeping a safe distance between them out of respect. “But the way you treat others, Morgana… it has to stop. I’m sorry.”

Her breathing stutters. Then it, too stops.

He straightens.

_“Eggsy!”_

“Merlin, you’re back with me,” Eggsy greets. He tucks the gun into his empty holster and turns away from the corpse of the empty woman. “And I’m sure you’re having a much easier time maintaining everyone now.”

“I – aye.” Merlin sounds baffled. “Ye really couldn’t hear me?”

“Not until the very end.” He starts down the hall. “Were you watching?”

“All of it.”

Eggsy nods to himself. Technology might fail, and so might magic, but usually in two different ways. Morgana would doubtless have been shielding, but Merlin has had a long time to fortify this place. And it’s much easier to block active communication than it is passive observation.

“But I don’t understand,” Merlin says. “You – Morgana – what she said – ”

“Hold that thought.” Eggsy reaches an intersection and turns left, towards medical, and breaks into a jog. “I’ll be there in a minute.”


	16. Chapter 16

The infirmary is bright after the dim lights in the hallway; it has priority on the backup generators, and it shows. It’s just as empty as everywhere else, though. Eggsy heads straight back to the room where he’d left Merlin and Roxy.

“Eggsy!” Harry shouts as soon as Eggsy enters the room. He tries to hug Eggsy, apparently forgetting that he’s insubstantial and hovering a good foot off the floor. His arms go right through Eggsy.

“Glad to see you too,” Eggsy says, laughing. “Though is that really the name you want to be calling me by?”

“So ye do remember,” Merlin says, stepping forward and taking control of the situation.

Or trying to. Eggsy nods at him, not taking his eyes off his beloved. “As soon as Morgana died, all of my memories were unlocked. A relief, in the end – I had been getting bits and pieces right along, and the headache was getting to be the outside of enough.”

“Eggsy – Galahad – my beloved,” Harry says wretchedly. “I am so, so sorry. I lied to you – ”

“You did not,” Eggsy says, affronted.

This brings the conversation to something of a halt. Lancelot and Percival, who are hovering in similar insubstantial forms across the room, exchange mystified looks. Roxy is the only one to smirk. But Harry looks befuddled, and Eggsy throws up his hands.

“Holy mother of God, you can’t be serious,” he huffs. “You mean you didn’t _know_ Morgana killed my father?”

“She didn’t,” Harry says, still sounding despairing. “I made that up to get you to fight her.”

Roxy laughs at him. Nicely, but she still laughs.

“Merlin, would you mind pulling up the footage from the ’93 Lancelot Trials?” Eggsy asks, still not taking his eyes off Harry. “You should have an easy time finding them; I hacked into them my second day here.”

“With my help,” Roxy says.

“With your help,” Eggsy agrees. “I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I couldn’t have handled the magical warding without you.”

“Of course not,” she says without a trace of shame.

“I’ve got them,” Merlin begins, “but what – ”

“Would you project them, please?”

Merlin looks at Harry. Harry nods.

A section of wall shimmers, and they’re suddenly looking at a dusty room, a man strapped to a chair. Other black-clad agents line the walls. The tag on the video shows that this is the glasses feed of one Harry Hart, Galahad.

The feed begins to revolve as Harry paces around the man in the chair. “Stop,” Eggsy says when Harry has traveled approximately ninety degrees. “Zoom in on his neck.”

Merlin does so. It’s pixelated all to hell. Eggsy finally takes his eyes off of Harry to give Merlin an exasperated look. “You realize that I’m not going to be fooled by technological limitations anymore, right?”

“I did this for him the first time,” Roxy speaks up. “So if you can’t handle it…”

Merlin grunts in annoyance, but wiggles his fingers. The pixellation magically clears up, revealing –

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Merlin swears.

“What am I looking at?” Percival comes closer and squints at the screen. “A little scar?”

“A little scar,” Eggsy agrees. “Like the sort you see on members of the Cult of Morgana.”

“He was one of hers,” Harry breathes.

“You should have realized it sooner,” Roxy says, scolding, from her casual pose leaning up against the wall. “You wouldn’t miss a weapon. Not unless the weapon had a little magical help.”

“The grenade?” Lancelot looks pale. “That was magical?”

“Oh my God,” Percival says, sounding horrified. “That’s the same way she killed me this time. The man I went to see – Professor Arnold – _he_ was one of hers. He detonated an explosive in my presence.”

“The same kind that Morgana used to kill my father,” Eggsy says. “She was aiming for you two, of course.” He nods at Lancelot and Harry.

“When she got Lee Unwin instead, she must have written the whole thing off as a failure.” Harry is looking shell-shocked.

“Not just written it off,” Merlin says. “Forgotten. She told Eggsy we’d lied to him, Harry. That you’d made up the part about her killing his father.”

“Morgana didn’t even remember she’d done it.” Out of all of this, that makes Eggsy the saddest. “She told me so many lies. She’d have told me any lies she thought would get me to her side. But when it came to my father’s death, she genuinely thought she was telling the truth… and that was when I knew.”

“Knew what?” Harry asks, like he’s afraid of the answer.

“Knew that she had to be stopped,” Eggsy says simply. “She’d taken a life, and she hadn’t even remembered it. The rest didn’t matter. When you get to that point, you have to be stopped.” He sighed. “So I stopped her.”

“Thank you,” Percival says.

“But now what?” Eggsy asks. “The curse is broken, but you three are… dead.”

“Not exactly,” Roxy says. She straightens from her indolent lean. “Their physical shells are, indeed, gone. But they aren’t dead.”

“While I respect the distinction…” Eggsy lets that trail off. He reaches wistfully for Harry. As had happened when Harry had tried to embrace Eggsy, Eggsy’s hand passes right through Harry.

“With the curse gone, I can take their souls to Avalon. They can wear bodies of mist until the time has come for them to return to the world again.”

“And I assume ye will go likewise?” Merlin asks suspiciously.

Roxy gives him a tolerant smile. “I shall.”

“But what about me?” Eggsy asks.

There’s a pause. When Roxy turns to him, her gaze is unfathomable.

“You have the right to enter Avalon,” she says carefully. “Go to the shores of my Lake, and across its waters you will see it. For you, the mists will part. There you will not grow old. You will know neither hunger nor thirst. You will wait, along with the others, until the Time has come for Arthur to return.”

“And how might a body of mist and a body of flesh interact?”

The ghost of a smile flits across Roxy’s face. “Poorly.”

“And if I don’t come?”

Harry’s cry of protest is inarticulate. It’s cut off when Lancelot puts an arm on his shoulder. Eggsy watches this happen, the confirmation of what he’d already suspected. _Two_ bodies of mist will interact just fine.

“You will live out your mortal years here, among your fellow mortals. Heed me,” the Lady commands. “The mists of my lake will not part for you again while you wear flesh. If you do not come with me now, even should you call my name, you will hear only echoes.”

“While I wear flesh,” Eggsy agrees. “And when I die?”

Roxy’s smile is definite now. “Why, I shall guide your soul home, Sir Galahad.”

Eggsy nods. He turns back to Harry. “I’m afraid I must ask you to wait, my King.”

“It’s been so long,” Harry says mournfully. He sighs. “But I agree.”

“And besides my personal reasons for wanting to stay, I’m also needed here.” Eggsy looks around at Kingsman – empty, echoing – sees in his mind’s eye the bodies in the hallways and the flickering lights from the second backup system. “Someone has to finish what you started. There’s still injustice in the world, Arthur. Still poverty and tyranny. I won’t be able to solve it all within the span of one mortal life, but the difference I make will echo down the generations until the Time arrives.”

“Well said,” Lancelot approves.

“May your efforts be blessed,” Percival says.

“And you, my King, my beloved?” Eggsy asks, when Harry remains stubbornly silent. “Will you give me your blessing?”

Harry hesitates. Eggsy feels his stomach sink.

“How could I ever deny it to you?” At last Harry smiles, though it’s a sad smile. “I shall miss you indescribably, my love, but yes. You go with my blessing. Go in the name of Camelot, and bring its light to a new generation.”

Eggsy smiles back. “I shall.”

There’s a humming sound, and suddenly the lights brighten further. “Main power’s back,” Merlin says. “Ye’d better hurry. People will be returning.”

“Say your farewells,” Roxy says. She closes her eyes and begins to glow.

“Goodbye,” Lancelot says. “God be with you.”

“Good luck,” Percival says.

Arthur reaches out for him. Eggsy – Galahad – reaches back.

“In the moment of transition, there may be a brief flash of molecular cohesion,” Merlin offers.

Eggsy blinks. “Huh?”

Harry laughs. He comes closer and leans in.

“Now,” Roxy says suddenly.

The glow around her grows brighter, brighter, until Eggsy must close his eyes. But then he feels it. Just for a moment, just for a heartbeat – the press of Arthur’s lips against his.

He opens his eyes, and they’re gone.

* * *

The years pass slowly, but they _do_ pass. Eggsy claims his rightful seat at the Round Table; Chester King, chastened by the death of three agents in rapid succession and the invasion of his headquarters, hardly quibbles. He even gets somewhat in the habit of listening to Eggsy’s suggestions. Just from time to time, of course. Only, as Chester gets older and his heart gets weaker, ‘time to time’ comes more often. Eventually Chester retires. Eggsy makes a series of halfhearted protests, but the vote is almost a foregone conclusion.

_It’s fitting, in a way,_ he writes in the journal he’s keeping. _You spent twenty years bearing my name. I can only hope I do yours half as much honor._

Eggsy had begun keeping the journal shortly after Harry – Arthur – had departed with the others for Avalon. He’d found himself with so many things he wanted to tell Arthur. Not just big things, things he could be certain he’d remember in thirty or forty or fifty years’ time. Little things. Just little things. Like JB’s new trick of rolling onto his back and waving his paws in the air when he wants a treat. Things that are hardly worth remembering, except that they matter the most.

Which is not to say that Eggsy never writes anything serious in the journal. Far from it. But most often, as he does the day after he sends his first agent to be killed, he writes: _I miss you. I wonder how much longer it will be._

It turns out to be quite a while, but at last the end comes.

“This is a friendlier way to go than I expected,” he comments to Merlin, who, of course, doesn’t look a day older than he had when Eggsy had first been brought to Kingsman. Nor a day older than he had in Camelot, come to that. Merlin had faked it with cosmetics for a while, aging himself up. Eventually there had been nothing for it but to fake his death. It had been an annoying year without him until he had finally deemed it safe to reappear as his “nephew” and assume the Merlin role again.

“If ye like, I’ll get a gun and pretend to be a terrorist,” Merlin offers dryly.

Eggsy laughs. It’s a little breathy, but he does it nonetheless. “No thanks,” he says. “I think I’ll stick with plan A.”

“Ye’re ready, then?” Merlin’s already tapping out the syringe.

“I look that bad?” he jokes. But he nods. “Yes.”

This illness is the last event in a growing chain of failing health. Eggsy had weathered the first couple of knocks, but there’s only so much a human body can take. His private doctor and Kingsman’s finest all agree: Eggsy has reached the end of his life.

It’s enough. He _is_ ready. His successor in Kingsman is already appointed. His will is written; his estates – which contain the equity of lifetimes built up by his brother knights Lancelot and Percival, as well as Arthur – are being split up and going to where they can do the most good. He’s said his good-byes to the mortal friends he’s made in this life.

“And you’re still set on sticking it out?” Eggsy asks.

Merlin nods. “It would be easy just to go back under the Tree, but I think shortsighted, too. The world still needs a caretaker. Let the Lady wrap herself in oblivion. I’ll stay with the country, and make sure it’s still standing when the Time comes around.”

“We’ll miss you.”

“Ach, ye’ll have plenty to do without me.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Like Harry. Eggsy has plans to do Harry many, many times.

It’s been a long drought.

Merlin finishes measuring the morphine. A lethal dose. Eggsy – Galahad – has died plenty of times before. He has no desire to ride the rest of this lifetime all the way to the grave. There’s barely anything left anyway. A few more days, growing weaker and weaker, with fewer lucid periods of increasingly short duration – and that’s if he’s lucky. No, all things considered, he’d rather take the easy way out.

“Now?” Merlin asks.

“Now,” Eggsy says.

Merlin administers the morphine.

Eggsy sighs. “That’s nice,” he says, hearing his voice already begin to slur. He leans back against the pillows of his deathbed and lets his muscles all relax. “Don’t go.”

“Of course not,” Merlin says gently. “I’ll stay till it’s over.”

“Thank you.”

A few eternities pass. Somewhere, a clock is ticking. Eggsy can hear it, louder and louder as his heartbeat grows quieter.

“Any last words?” Merlin asks.

Galahad closes his eyes. “Make up something good for me.”

* * *

Somewhere on Avalon, Galahad opens his eyes again. And smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Thanks again to the usual suspects, and particularly to Donnerstagsengel for the amazing art, which you now all get to appreciate too! I hope everyone enjoyed the fic :) If you made it this far, how about leaving a comment and letting me know what you thought?

**Author's Note:**

> The seed for this fic actually somewhat predates the incredibly perfect art by [Kilauea](https://kilauea.dreamwidth.org), and before it assumed its present form, the talented [Elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan) actually wrote the vast majority of what ended up being the first chapter of this fic. I've revised and edited it, inserted bits here and there and rewritten other bits, but there is more than enough of her work left here to qualify her for coauthor credit on this chapter! Thanks Elr!


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